Ode to a Nightingale

 by John Keats, May 1819

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains  
 My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,  
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains  
 One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:  
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 
 But being too happy in thine happiness,  
 That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,  
 In some melodious plot  
 Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,  
 Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 
 
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been  
 Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,  
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,  
 Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!  
O for a beaker full of the warm South! 
 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,  
 With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,  
 And purple-stainèd mouth;  
 That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,  
 And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 
 
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget  
 What thou among the leaves hast never known,  
The weariness, the fever, and the fret  
 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;  
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 
 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;  
 Where but to think is to be full of sorrow  
 And leaden-eyed despairs;  
 Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,  
 Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 
 
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,  
 Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,  
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,  
 Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:  
Already with thee! tender is the night, 
 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,  
 Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays  
 But here there is no light,  
 Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown  
 Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 
 
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,  
 Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,  
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet  
 Wherewith the seasonable month endows  
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 
 White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;  
 Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;  
 And mid-May's eldest child,  
 The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,  
 The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time  
 I have been half in love with easeful Death,  
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,  
 To take into the air my quiet breath;  
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain,  
 While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad  
 In such an ecstasy!  
 Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—  
 To thy high requiem become a sod. 
 
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!  
 No hungry generations tread thee down;  
The voice I hear this passing night was heard  
 In ancient days by emperor and clown:  
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,  
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn;  
 The same that ofttimes hath  
 Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam  
 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 
 
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell  
 To toll me back from thee to my sole self!  
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well  
 As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.  
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 
 Past the near meadows, over the still stream,  
 Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep  
 In the next valley-glades:  
 Was it a vision, or a waking dream?  
 Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

Ode to Autumn

 by John Keats, 19 September 1819

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,  
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;  
Conspiring with him how to load and bless  
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;  
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;  
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells  
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,  
And still more, later flowers for the bees,  
Until they think warm days will never cease; 
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.  
  
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?  
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find  
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,  
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,  
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook  
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:  
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep  
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,  
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.  
  
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?  
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—  
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;  
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn  
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft  
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;  
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft  
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;  
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.  

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