165 Life! I know not what thou art, Life! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear— Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; -Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good Night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good Morning. A. L. BARBAULD THE GOLDEN TREASURY BOOK FOURTH 166 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold Oft of one wide expanse had I been told -Then felt I like some watcher of the skies He stared at the Pacific, and all his men J. KEATS 167 ODE ON THE POETS Bards of Passion and of Mirth -Yes, and those of heaven commune Browsed by none but Dian's fawns ; Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame ; What doth strengthen and what maim Thus ye teach us, everyday, Wisdom, though fled far away. Bards of Passion and of Mirth Ye have left your souls on earth ! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new! J. KEATS 168 LOVE All thoughts, all passions, all delights, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I The moonshine stealing o'er the scene She lean'd against the arméd man, Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. I play'd a soft and doleful air, She listen'd with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight that wore I told her how he pined: and ah! She listen'd with a flitting blush, But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, That sometimes from the savage den, There came and look'd him in the face And that unknowing what he did, And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees The scorn that crazed his brain; And that she nursed him in a cave, -His dying words-but when I reach'd |