Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 117

'And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.'

John Keats. 1795-1821

634. On first looking into Chapman's Homer

MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats. 1795-1821

635. When I have Fears that I may cease to be

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And feel that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!

That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love;--then on the sh.o.r.e Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats. 1795-1821

636. To Sleep

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!

Shutting with careful fingers and benign Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the pa.s.sed day will s.h.i.+ne Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

John Keats. 1795-1821

637. Last Sonnet

BRIGHT Star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round earth's human sh.o.r.es, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

Jeremiah Joseph Callanan. 1795-1839

638. The Outlaw of Loch Lene FROM THE IRISH

O MANY a day have I made good ale in the glen, That came not of stream or malt, like the brewing of men: My bed was the ground; my roof, the green-wood above; And the wealth that I sought, one far kind glance from my Love.

Alas! on that night when the horses I drove from the field, That I was not near from terror my angel to s.h.i.+eld!

She stretch'd forth her arms; her mantle she flung to the wind, And swam o'er Loch Lene, her outlaw'd lover to find.

O would that a freezing sleet-wing'd tempest did sweep, And I and my love were alone, far off on the deep; I'd ask not a s.h.i.+p, or a bark, or a pinnace, to save-- With her hand round my waist, I'd fear not the wind or the wave.

'Tis down by the lake where the wild tree fringes its sides, The maid of my heart, my fair one of Heaven resides: I think, as at eve she wanders its mazes among, The birds go to sleep by the sweet wild twist of her song.

William Sidney Walker. 1795-1846

639. Too solemn for day, too sweet for night

TOO solemn for day, too sweet for night, Come not in darkness, come not in light; But come in some twilight interim, When the gloom is soft, and the light is dim.

George Darley. 1795-1846

640. Song

SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, Lull'd by the faint breezes sighing through her hair; Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.

Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above: O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming, I too could glide to the bower of my love!

Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her, Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay, Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, To her lost mate's call in the forests far away.

Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest, Still Heaven's messenger of comfort to me-- Come--this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest, Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee!

George Darley. 1795-1846

641. To Helene On a Gift-ring carelessly lost

I SENT a ring--a little band Of emerald and ruby stone, And bade it, sparkling on thy hand, Tell thee sweet tales of one Whose constant memory Was full of loveliness, and thee.

A sh.e.l.l was graven on its gold,-- 'Twas Cupid fix'd without his wings-- To Helene once it would have told More than was ever told by rings: But now all 's past and gone, Her love is buried with that stone.

Thou shalt not see the tears that start From eyes by thoughts like these beguiled; Thou shalt not know the beating heart, Ever a victim and a child: Yet Helene, love, believe The heart that never could deceive.

I'll hear thy voice of melody In the sweet whispers of the air; I'll see the brightness of thine eye In the blue evening's dewy star; In crystal streams thy purity; And look on Heaven to look on thee.

George Darley. 1795-1846

642. The Fallen Star

A STAR is gone! a star is gone!

There is a blank in Heaven; One of the cherub choir has done His airy course this even.

He sat upon the orb of fire That hung for ages there, And lent his music to the choir That haunts the nightly air.

But when his thousand years are pa.s.s'd, With a cherubic sigh He vanish'd with his car at last, For even cherubs die!

Hear how his angel-brothers mourn-- The minstrels of the spheres-- Each chiming sadly in his turn And dropping splendid tears.

The planetary sisters all Join in the fatal song, And weep this hapless brother's fall, Who sang with them so long.

But deepest of the choral band The Lunar Spirit sings, And with a ba.s.s-according hand Sweeps all her sullen strings.

From the deep chambers of the dome Where sleepless Uriel lies, His rude harmonic thunders come Mingled with mighty sighs.