SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Kubla Khan
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
 To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Argument
How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the
South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great
Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent
Marinere came back to his own Country.
PART I The bride hath paced into the hall,
It is an ancient Mariner, Red as a rose is she;
And he stoppeth one of three. Nodding their heads before her goes
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, The merry minstrelsy.
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And I am next of kin; And thus spake on that ancient man,
The guests are met, the feast is set: The bright-eyed Mariner.
May'st hear the merry din.'
And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
He holds him with his skinny hand, Was tyrannous and strong:
'There was a ship,' quoth he. He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' And chased us south along.
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
He holds him with his glittering eye— As who pursued with yell and blow
The Wedding-Guest stood still, Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And listens like a three years' child: And forward bends his head,
The Mariner hath his will. The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear; And now there came both mist and snow,
And thus spake on that ancient man, And it grew wondrous cold:
The bright-eyed Mariner. And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Below the kirk, below the hill, Did send a dismal sheen:
Below the lighthouse top. Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he! The ice was here, the ice was there,
And he shone bright, and on the right The ice was all around:
Went down into the sea. It cracked and growled, and roared and
howled,
Higher and higher every day, Like noises in a swound!
Till over the mast at noon—'
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, At length did cross an Albatross,
For he heard the loud bassoon. Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name. We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 'Twas sad as sad could be;
The helmsman steered us through! And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow, All in a hot and copper sky,
And every day, for food or play, The bloody Sun, at noon,
Came to the mariner's hollo! Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine; Day after day, day after day,
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
white, As idle as a painted ship
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.' Upon a painted ocean.

'God save thee, ancient Mariner! Water, water, every where,

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— And all the boards did shrink;
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow Water, water, every where,
I shot the ALBATROSS. Nor any drop to drink.

PART II The very deep did rot: O Christ!

The Sun now rose upon the right: That ever this should be!
Out of the sea came he, Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Still hid in mist, and on the left Upon the slimy sea.
Went down into the sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
And the good south wind still blew behind, The death-fires danced at night;
But no sweet bird did follow, The water, like a witch's oils,
Nor any day for food or play Burnt green, and blue and white.
Came to the mariner's hollo!
And some in dreams assurèd were
And I had done a hellish thing, Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
And it would work 'em woe: Nine fathom deep he had followed us
For all averred, I had killed the bird From the land of mist and snow.
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, And every tongue, through utter drought,
That made the breeze to blow! Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, We had been choked with soot.
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
That brought the fog and mist. Had I from old and young!
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, Instead of the cross, the Albatross
That bring the fog and mist. About my neck was hung.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, PART III
The furrow followed free; There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time! Are those her ribs through which the Sun
How glazed each weary eye, Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
When looking westward, I beheld Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
A something in the sky. Is DEATH that woman's mate?

At first it seemed a little speck, Her lips were red, her looks were free,
And then it seemed a mist; Her locks were yellow as gold:
It moved and moved, and took at last Her skin was as white as leprosy,
A certain shape, I wist. The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared: The naked hulk alongside came,
As if it dodged a water-sprite, And the twain were casting dice;
It plunged and tacked and veered. 'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail; The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood! At one stride comes the dark;
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
And cried, A sail! a sail! Off shot the spectre-bark.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We listened and looked sideways up!
Agape they heard me call: Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
Gramercy! they for joy did grin, My life-blood seemed to sip!
And all at once their breath drew in. The stars were dim, and thick the night,
As they were drinking all. The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed
white;
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! From the sails the dew did drip—
Hither to work us weal; Till clomb above the eastern bar
Without a breeze, without a tide, The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
She steadies with upright keel! Within the nether tip.

The western wave was all a-flame. One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
The day was well nigh done! Too quick for groan or sigh,
Almost upon the western wave Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
Rested the broad bright Sun; And cursed me with his eye.
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun. Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!) They dropped down one by one.
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face. The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) And every soul, it passed me by,
How fast she nears and nears! Like the whizz of my cross-bow!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres? PART IV
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner! And no where did abide:
I fear thy skinny hand! Softly she was going up,
And thou art long, and lank, and brown, And a star or two beside—
As is the ribbed sea-sand.
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
I fear thee and thy glittering eye, Like April hoar-frost spread;
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'— But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! The charmèd water burnt alway
This body dropt not down. A still and awful red.

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Beyond the shadow of the ship,
Alone on a wide wide sea! I watched the water-snakes:
And never a saint took pity on They moved in tracks of shining white,
My soul in agony. And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie: Within the shadow of the ship
And a thousand thousand slimy things I watched their rich attire:
Lived on; and so did I. Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
I looked upon the rotting sea, Was a flash of golden fire.
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck, O happy living things! no tongue
And there the dead men lay. Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; And I blessed them unaware:
But or ever a prayer had gusht, Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
A wicked whisper came, and made And I blessed them unaware.
My heart as dry as dust.
The self-same moment I could pray;
I closed my lids, and kept them close, And from my neck so free
And the balls like pulses beat; The Albatross fell off, and sank
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the Like lead into the sea.
sky
Lay dead like a load on my weary eye, PART V
And the dead were at my feet. Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
The cold sweat melted from their limbs, To Mary Queen the praise be given!
Nor rot nor reek did they: She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
The look with which they looked on me That slid into my soul.
Had never passed away.
The silly buckets on the deck,
An orphan's curse would drag to hell That had so long remained,
A spirit from on high; I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
But oh! more horrible than that And when I awoke, it rained.
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
And yet I could not die. My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
The moving Moon went up the sky, And still my body drank.
I moved, and could not feel my limbs: 'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
I was so light—almost Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
I thought that I had died in sleep, 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
And was a blessed ghost. Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:
And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear; For when it dawned—they dropped their
But with its sound it shook the sails, arms,
That were so thin and sere. And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their
The upper air burst into life! mouths,
And a hundred fire-flags sheen, And from their bodies passed.
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out, Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
The wan stars danced between. Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
And the coming wind did roar more loud, Now mixed, now one by one.
And the sails did sigh like sedge,
And the rain poured down from one black Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
cloud; I heard the sky-lark sing;
The Moon was at its edge. Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still With their sweet jargoning!
The Moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag, And now 'twas like all instruments,
The lightning fell with never a jag, Now like a lonely flute;
A river steep and wide. And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.
The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on! It ceased; yet still the sails made on
Beneath the lightning and the Moon A pleasant noise till noon,
The dead men gave a groan. A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, That to the sleeping woods all night
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; Singeth a quiet tune.
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise. Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Yet never a breeze up-blew; Moved onward from beneath.
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do; Under the keel nine fathom deep,
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools— From the land of mist and snow,
We were a ghastly crew. The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The body of my brother's son The sails at noon left off their tune,
Stood by me, knee to knee: And the ship stood still also.
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me. The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir, First Voice
With a short uneasy motion— 'But why drives on that ship so fast,
Backwards and forwards half her length Without or wave or wind?'
With a short uneasy motion.
Second Voice
Then like a pawing horse let go, 'The air is cut away before,
She made a sudden bound: And closes from behind.
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound. Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
How long in that same fit I lay, For slow and slow that ship will go,
I have not to declare; When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned I woke, and we were sailing on
Two voices in the air. As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man? The dead men stood together.
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low All stood together on the deck,
The harmless Albatross. For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
The spirit who bideth by himself That in the Moon did glitter.
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Who shot him with his bow.' Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
The other was a softer voice, Nor turn them up to pray.
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done, And now this spell was snapt: once more
And penance more will do.' I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
PART VI Of what had else been seen—

First Voice Like one, that on a lonesome road

'But tell me, tell me! speak again, Doth walk in fear and dread,
Thy soft response renewing— And having once turned round walks on,
What makes that ship drive on so fast? And turns no more his head;
What is the ocean doing?' Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Second Voice
Still as a slave before his lord, But soon there breathed a wind on me,
The ocean hath no blast; Nor sound nor motion made:
His great bright eye most silently Its path was not upon the sea,
Up to the Moon is cast— In ripple or in shade.

If he may know which way to go; It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek

For she guides him smooth or grim. Like a meadow-gale of spring—
See, brother, see! how graciously It mingled strangely with my fears,
She looketh down on him.' Yet it felt like a welcoming.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, But soon I heard the dash of oars,
Yet she sailed softly too: I heard the Pilot's cheer;
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze— My head was turned perforce away
On me alone it blew. And I saw a boat appear.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
The light-house top I see? I heard them coming fast:
Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
Is this mine own countree? The dead men could not blast.

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, I saw a third—I heard his voice:

And I with sobs did pray— It is the Hermit good!
O let me be awake, my God! He singeth loud his godly hymns
Or let me sleep alway. That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The harbour-bay was clear as glass, The Albatross's blood.
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay, PART VII
And the shadow of the Moon. This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
That stands above the rock: He loves to talk with marineres
The moonlight steeped in silentness That come from a far countree.
The steady weathercock.
He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
And the bay was white with silent light, He hath a cushion plump:
Till rising from the same, It is the moss that wholly hides
Full many shapes, that shadows were, The rotted old oak-stump.
In crimson colours came.
The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
A little distance from the prow 'Why, this is strange, I trow!
Those crimson shadows were: Where are those lights so many and fair,
I turned my eyes upon the deck— That signal made but now?'
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said—
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 'And they answered not our cheer!
And, by the holy rood! The planks looked warped! and see those
A man all light, a seraph-man, sails,
On every corse there stood. How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
This seraph-band, each waved his hand: Unless perchance it were
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land, Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
Each one a lovely light; My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
This seraph-band, each waved his hand, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
No voice did they impart— That eats the she-wolf's young.'
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart. 'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply) Which forced me to begin my tale;
I am a-feared'—'Push on, push on!' And then it left me free.
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship, Since then, at an uncertain hour,
But I nor spake nor stirred; That agony returns:
The boat came close beneath the ship, And till my ghastly tale is told,
And straight a sound was heard. This heart within me burns.

Under the water it rumbled on, I pass, like night, from land to land;
Still louder and more dread: I have strange power of speech;
It reached the ship, it split the bay; That moment that his face I see,
The ship went down like lead. I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote, What loud uproar bursts from that door!
Like one that hath been seven days drowned The wedding-guests are there:
My body lay afloat; But in the garden-bower the bride
But swift as dreams, myself I found And bride-maids singing are:
Within the Pilot's boat. And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!
Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round; O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
And all was still, save that the hill Alone on a wide wide sea:
Was telling of the sound. So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemèd there to be.
I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit; O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
The holy Hermit raised his eyes, 'Tis sweeter far to me,
And prayed where he did sit. To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—
I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go, To walk together to the kirk,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while And all together pray,
His eyes went to and fro. While each to his great Father bends,
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see, Old men, and babes, and loving friends
The Devil knows how to row.' And youths and maidens gay!

And now, all in my own countree, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
I stood on the firm land! To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, He prayeth well, who loveth well
And scarcely he could stand. Both man and bird and beast.

'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' He prayeth best, who loveth best
The Hermit crossed his brow. All things both great and small;
'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say— For the dear God who loveth us,
What manner of man art thou?' He made and loveth all.

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
With a woful agony, Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest And is of sense forlorn:
Turned from the bridegroom's door. A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
 Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
 Ode to the West Wind
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
 To a Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a Poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aëreal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'd

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match'd with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.