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KEATS
O GOLD Hyperion, love-lorn Porphyro, | |
| Ill-fated! from thine orbëd fire struck back | |
| Just as the parting clouds began to glow, | |
| And stars, like sparks, to bicker in thy track! | |
| Alas! throw down, throw down, ye mighty dead, | 5 |
| The leaves of oak and asphodel | |
| That ye were weaving for that honored head,— | |
| In vain, in vain, your lips would seek a spell | |
| In the few charmed words the poet sung, | |
| To lure him upward in your seats to dwell,— | 10 |
| As vain your grief! Oh! why should one so young | |
| Sit crowned midst hoary heads with wreaths divine? | |
| Though to his lips Hymettus’ bees had clung, | |
| His lips shall never taste the immortal wine, | |
| Who sought to drain the glowing cup too soon, | 15 |
| For he hath perished, and the moon | |
| Hath lost Endymion—but too well | |
| The shaft that pierced him in her arms was sped: | |
| Into that gulf of dark and nameless dread, | |
| Star-like he fell, but a wide splendor shed | 20 |
| Through its deep night, that kindled as he fell. | |
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WORDSWORTH
And Thou! whom earth still holds, and will not yield | |
| To join the mighty brotherhood of ghosts,— | |
| Who, when their lips upon the earth are sealed, | |
| Sing in the presence of the Lord of Hosts:— | 25 |
| Thou that, when first my quickened ear | |
| Thy deeper harmonies might hear, | |
| I imaged to myself as old and blind, | |
| For so were Milton and Mæonides! | |
| And worthy art thou—whether like the wind | 30 |
| Rousing its might among the forest trees, | |
| Thou sing of mountain and of flood, | |
| The voiceful thunder of the seas, | |
| With all their inland symphonies, | |
| Their thousand brooks and rills; | 35 |
| The vale’s deep voice, the roaring wood, | |
| The ancient silence of the hills, | |
| Sublimer still than these; | |
| Or in devotion’s loftier mood, | |
| Like a solemn organ tone | 40 |
| In some vast minster heard alone, | |
| Feelings that are thoughts inspire; | |
| Or, with thy hand upon the lyre | |
| High victories to celebrate, | |
| Summon from its strings the throng | 45 |
| Of stately numbers intricate | |
| That swell the impetuous tide of song. | |
| O Bard, of soul assured and high, | |
| And god-like calm! we look on thee | |
| With like serene and awful eye, | 50 |
| As when,—of such divinity | |
| Still credulous,—the multitude | |
| One in the concourse might behold, | |
| Whose statue in his life-time stood | |
| Among the gods. O Poet, old | 55 |
| In all the years of future time! | |
| But young in the perpetual youth | |
| And bloom of love, and might of truth,— | |
| To these thy least ambitious rhyme | |
| Is faithful, and partakes their worth; | 60 |
| Yea, true as is the starry chime | |
| To the great strains the sun gives forth. | |
| Bard of our Time! thy name we see, | |
| By golden-haired Mnemosyne, | |
| First graved upon its full-writ page,— | 65 |
| Thee—last relinquished, whom the Age | |
| Doth yield to Immortality. | |
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