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A THING of beauty is a joy for ever: | |
| Its loveliness increases; it will never | |
| Pass into nothingness; but still will keep | |
| A bower quiet for us, and a sleep | |
| Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. | 5 |
| Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing | |
| A flowery band to bind us to the earth. | |
| Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth | |
| Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, | |
| Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways | 10 |
| Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, | |
| Some shape of beauty moves away the pall | |
| From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, | |
| Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon | |
| For simple sheep; and such are daffodils | 15 |
| With the green world they live in; and clear rills | |
| That for themselves a cooling covert make | |
| ’Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, | |
| Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: | |
| And such too is the grandeur of the dooms | 20 |
| We have imagined for the mighty dead; | |
| All lovely tales that we have heard or read: | |
| An endless fountain of immortal drink, | |
| Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink. | |
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| Nor do we merely feel these essences | 25 |
| For one short hour; no, even as the trees | |
| That whisper round a temple become soon | |
| Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon, | |
| The passion poesy, glories infinite, | |
| Haunt us till they become a cheering light | 30 |
| Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, | |
| That, whether there be shine, or gloom o’ercast, | |
| They always must be with us, or we die. | |
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| Therefore, ’tis with full happiness that I | |
| Will trace the story of Endymion. | 35 |
| The very music of the name has gone | |
| Into my being, and each pleasant scene | |
| Is growing fresh before me as the green | |
| Of our own valleys: so I will begin | |
| Now while I cannot hear the city’s din; | 40 |
| Now while the early budders are just new, | |
| And run in mazes of the youngest hue | |
| About old forests; while the willow trails | |
| Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails | |
| Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year | 45 |
| Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer | |
| My little boat, for many quiet hours, | |
| With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. | |
| Many and many a verse I hope to write, | |
| Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white, | 50 |
| Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees | |
| Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, | |
| I must be near the middle of my story. | |
| O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, | |
| See it half finished: but let Autumn bold, | 55 |
| With universal tinge of sober gold, | |
| Be all about me when I make an end. | |
| And now at once, adventuresome, I send | |
| My herald thought into a wilderness: | |
| There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress | 60 |
| My uncertain path with green, that I may speed | |
| Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed. | |
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