The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies - John Keats

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and high fantastic roof,

      Of those dusk places in times far aloof

      Cathedrals call’d. He bade a loth farewel

      To these founts Protean, passing gulph, and dell,

      And torrent, and ten thousand jutting shapes,

      Half seen through deepest gloom, and griesly gapes,

      Blackening on every side, and overhead

      A vaulted dome like Heaven’s, far bespread

      With starlight gems: aye, all so huge and strange,

      The solitary felt a hurried change

      Working within him into something dreary,–

      Vex’d like a morning eagle, lost, and weary,

      And purblind amid foggy, midnight wolds.

      But he revives at once: for who beholds

      New sudden things, nor casts his mental slough?

      Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below,

      Came mother Cybele! alone–alone–

      In sombre chariot; dark foldings thrown

      About her majesty, and front death-pale,

      With turrets crown’d. Four maned lions hale

      The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws,

      Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws

      Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails

      Cowering their tawny brushes. Silent sails

      This shadowy queen athwart, and faints away

      In another gloomy arch.

      Wherefore delay,

      Young traveller, in such a mournful place?

      Art thou wayworn, or canst not further trace

      The diamond path? And does it indeed end

      Abrupt in middle air? Yet earthward bend

      Thy forehead, and to Jupiter cloud-borne

      Call ardently! He was indeed wayworn;

      Abrupt, in middle air, his way was lost;

      To cloud-borne Jove he bowed, and there crost

      Towards him a large eagle, ‘twixt whose wings,

      Without one impious word, himself he flings,

      Committed to the darkness and the gloom:

      Down, down, uncertain to what pleasant doom,

      Swift as a fathoming plummet down he fell

      Through unknown things; till exhaled asphodel,

      And rose, with spicy fannings interbreath’d,

      Came swelling forth where little caves were wreath’d

      So thick with leaves and mosses, that they seem’d

      Large honeycombs of green, and freshly teem’d

      With airs delicious. In the greenest nook

      The eagle landed him, and farewel took.

      It was a jasmine bower, all bestrown

      With golden moss. His every sense had grown

      Ethereal for pleasure; ‘bove his head

      Flew a delight half-graspable; his tread

      Was Hesperean; to his capable ears

      Silence was music from the holy spheres;

      A dewy luxury was in his eyes;

      The little flowers felt his pleasant sighs

      And stirr’d them faintly. Verdant cave and cell

      He wander’d through, oft wondering at such swell

      Of sudden exaltation: but, “Alas!

      Said he, “will all this gush of feeling pass

      Away in solitude? And must they wane,

      Like melodies upon a sandy plain,

      Without an echo? Then shall I be left

      So sad, so melancholy, so bereft!

      Yet still I feel immortal! O my love,

      My breath of life, where art thou? High above,

      Dancing before the morning gates of heaven?

      Or keeping watch among those starry seven,

      Old Atlas’ children? Art a maid of the waters,

      One of shell-winding Triton’s bright-hair’d daughters?

      Or art, impossible! a nymph of Dian’s,

      Weaving a coronal of tender scions

      For very idleness? Where’er thou art,

      Methinks it now is at my will to start

      Into thine arms; to scare Aurora’s train,

      And snatch thee from the morning; o’er the main

      To scud like a wild bird, and take thee off

      From thy sea-foamy cradle; or to doff

      Thy shepherd vest, and woo thee mid fresh leaves.

      No, no, too eagerly my soul deceives

      Its powerless self: I know this cannot be.

      O let me then by some sweet dreaming flee

      To her entrancements: hither sleep awhile!

      Hither most gentle sleep! and soothing foil

      For some few hours the coming solitude.”

      Thus spake he, and that moment felt endued

      With power to dream deliciously; so wound

      Through a dim passage, searching till he found

      The smoothest mossy bed and deepest, where

      He threw himself, and just into the air

      Stretching his indolent arms, he took, O bliss!

      A naked waist: “Fair Cupid, whence is this?”

      A well-known voice sigh’d, “Sweetest, here am I!”

      At which soft ravishment, with doating cry

      They trembled to each other.–Helicon!

      O fountain’d hill! Old Homer’s Helicon!

      That thou wouldst spout a little streamlet o’er

      These sorry pages; then the verse would soar

      And sing above this gentle pair, like lark

      Over his nested young: but all is dark

      Around thine aged top, and thy clear fount

      Exhales in mists to heaven. Aye, the count

      Of mighty Poets is made up; the scroll

      Is folded by the Muses; the bright roll

      Is in Apollo’s hand: our dazed eyes

      Have seen a new tinge in the western skies:

      The world has done its duty. Yet, oh yet,

      Although the sun of poesy is set,

      These lovers did embrace, and we must weep

      That there is no old power left to steep

      A quill immortal in their joyous tears.

      Long time in silence did their anxious fears

      Question that thus it was; long time they lay

      Fondling and kissing every doubt away;

      Long time ere soft caressing sobs began

      To mellow into words, and then there ran

      Two bubbling springs of talk from their sweet lips.

      “O known Unknown! from whom my being

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