LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

Što te muči o moj pažu,
Da tu samac tražiš spas?
Šaš tek šušti, al' svih ptica
Zanijemio glas.

Što te muči o moj pažu?
Toneš sav u nujne sne?
Vjeveričin silos pun je,
A jesen već mre.

Tvoje čelo bijel je ljiljan,
Boli kap k'o biser čist
Blista, obraz blijedi vene
Kao ružin list.

Gospu ja u polju sretoh:
Kao vila lijepa sva,
Kose duge, noške lake,
Oko joj se sja.

Glavu vijencem joj  ukrasih,
Grivne spletoh njoj u čast.
Pogleda me, ja oćutjeh
Svu ljubavnu slast.

Podigoh je na svog konja,
Za sve bijah slijep taj dan;
Pjevaše mi pjesmu divnu,
Kao vilin san.

Korijenja mi slatkog, meda
Divljeg da i mine sjaj:
Govori baš čudnim glasom:
"Ja te ljubim znaj"

Vilinskom me domu vodi.
Plače danju i po noći.
S tri poljupca morao sam
Da joj stisnem oči.

Sve sam kralj i knez i ratnik
-A svak blijed k'o sablast, sjen-
Viču:"La belle dame sans merci!
Zauvijek si njen!"

Tu je mene uspavala;
Sanjah to, što neće proć.
Na obronku brijega hladna
Proveo sam noć.

Zato ovdje jadan lutam,
U samoći tražim spas.
Šaš tek šušti, al' svih ptica
Zanijemio glas.

Ode
   
     
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,       
Ye have left your souls on earth!       
Have ye souls in heaven too,       
Doubled-lived in regions new?       
Yes, and those of heaven commune          
With the spheres of sun and moon;       
With the noise of fountains wondrous,       
And the parle of voices thund'rous;       
With the whisper of heaven's trees       
And one another, in soft ease    
Seated on Elysian lawns       
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;       
Underneath large blue-bells tented,       
Where the daisies are rose-scented,       
And the rose herself has got   
Perfume which on earth is not;       
Where the nightingale doth sing       
Not a senseless, trancèd thing,       
But divine melodious truth;       
Philosophic numbers smooth;    
Tales and golden histories       
Of heaven and its mysteries.       
   
  Thus ye live on high, and then       
On the earth ye live again;       
And the souls ye left behind you    
Teach us, here, the way to find you,       
Where your other souls are joying,       
Never slumber'd, never cloying.       
Here, your earth-born souls still speak       
To mortals, of their little week;    
Of their sorrows and delights;       
Of their passions and their spites;       
Of their glory and their shame;       
What doth strengthen and what maim.       
Thus ye teach us, every day,    
Wisdom, though fled far away.       
   
  Bards of Passion and of Mirth,       
Ye have left your souls on earth!       
Ye have souls in heaven too,       
Double-lived in regions new!    

 Fancy   
     
Ever let the Fancy roam,       
Pleasure never is at home:       
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,       
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;       
Then let wingèd Fancy wander               
Through the thought still spread beyond her:       
Open wide the mind's cage-door,       
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.       
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;       
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,        
And the enjoying of the Spring       
Fades as does its blossoming;       
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,       
Blushing through the mist and dew,       
Cloys with tasting: What do then?        
Sit thee by the ingle, when       
The sear faggot blazes bright,       
Spirit of a winter's night;       
When the soundless earth is muffled,       
And the cakèd snow is shuffled        
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;       
When the Night doth meet the Noon       
In a dark conspiracy       
To banish Even from her sky.       
Sit thee there, and send abroad,    
With a mind self-overawed,       
Fancy, high-commission'd:—send her!       
She has vassals to attend her:       
She will bring, in spite of frost,       
Beauties that the earth hath lost;    
She will bring thee, all together,       
All delights of summer weather;       
All the buds and bells of May,       
From dewy sward or thorny spray;       
All the heapèd Autumn's wealth,    
With a still, mysterious stealth:       
She will mix these pleasures up       
Like three fit wines in a cup,       
And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear       
Distant harvest-carols clear;    
Rustle of the reapèd corn;       
Sweet birds antheming the morn:       
And, in the same moment—hark!       
'Tis the early April lark,       
Or the rooks, with busy caw,    
Foraging for sticks and straw.       
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold       
The daisy and the marigold;       
White-plumed lilies, and the first       
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;    
Shaded hyacinth, alway       
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;       
And every leaf, and every flower       
Pearlèd with the self-same shower.       
Thou shalt see the fieldmouse peep    
Meagre from its cellèd sleep;       
And the snake all winter-thin       
Cast on sunny bank its skin;       
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see       
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,    
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest       
Quiet on her mossy nest;       
Then the hurry and alarm       
When the beehive casts its swarm;       
Acorns ripe down-pattering    
While the autumn breezes sing.       
   
  O sweet Fancy! let her loose;       
Every thing is spoilt by use:       
Where 's the cheek that doth not fade,       
Too much gazed at? Where 's the maid    
Whose lip mature is ever new?       
Where 's the eye, however blue,       
Doth not weary? Where 's the face       
One would meet in every place?       
Where 's the voice, however soft,    
One would hear so very oft?   
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth       
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.       
Let, then, wingèd Fancy find       
Thee a mistress to thy mind:    
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,       
Ere the God of Torment taught her       
How to frown and how to chide;       
With a waist and with a side       
White as Hebe's, when her zone    
Slipt its golden clasp, and down       
Fell her kirtle to her feet,       
While she held the goblet sweet,       
And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh       
Of the Fancy's silken leash;    
Quickly break her prison-string,       
And such joys as these she'll bring.—       
Let the wingèd Fancy roam,       
Pleasure never is at home.

Stanzas   
     
IN a drear-nighted December,       
  Too happy, happy tree,       
Thy branches ne'er remember       
  Their green felicity:       
The north cannot undo them,               
With a sleety whistle through them;       
Nor frozen thawings glue them       
  From budding at the prime.       
   
In a drear-nighted December,       
  Too happy, happy brook,        
Thy bubblings ne'er remember       
  Apollo's summer look;       
But with a sweet forgetting,       
They stay their crystal fretting,       
Never, never petting    
  About the frozen time.       
   
Ah! would 'twere so with many       
  A gentle girl and boy!       
But were there ever any       
  Writhed not at passèd joy?    
To know the change and feel it,       
When there is none to heal it,       
Nor numbèd sense to steal it,       
  Was never said in rhyme.       

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (English)
     
'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,       
  Alone and palely loitering?       
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,       
      And no birds sing.       
   
'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,            
  So haggard and so woe-begone?       
The squirrel's granary is full,       
      And the harvest 's done.       
   
'I see a lily on thy brow       
  With anguish moist and fever dew;        
And on thy cheeks a fading rose       
      Fast withereth too.'       
   
'I met a lady in the meads,       
  Full beautiful—a faery's child,       
Her hair was long, her foot was light,        
      And her eyes were wild.       
   
'I made a garland for her head,       
  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;       
She look'd at me as she did love,       
      And made sweet moan.        
   
'I set her on my pacing steed       
  And nothing else saw all day long,       
For sideways would she lean, and sing       
      A faery's song.       
   
'She found me roots of relish sweet,    
  And honey wild and manna dew,       
And sure in language strange she said,       
      "I love thee true!"       
   
'She took me to her elfin grot,       
  And there she wept and sigh'd fill sore;        
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes       
      With kisses four.       
   
'And there she lullèd me asleep,       
  And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!       
The latest dream I ever dream'd    
      On the cold hill's side.       
   
'I saw pale kings and princes too,       
  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;       
They cried—"La belle Dame sans Merci       
      Hath thee in thrall!"    

'I saw their starved lips in the gloam       
  With horrid warning gapèd wide,       
And I awoke and found me here,       
      On the cold hill's side.       
   
'And this is why I sojourn here    
  Alone and palely loitering,       
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,       
      And no birds sing.'

On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer   
     
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,       
  And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;       
  Round many western islands have I been       
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.       
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told               
  That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:       
  Yet did I never breathe its pure serene       
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:       
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies       
  When a new planet swims into his ken;        
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes       
  He stared at the Pacific—and all his men       
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—       
  Silent, upon a peak in Darien.       

 When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be   
     
When I have fears that I may cease to be       
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,       
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,       
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;       
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,               
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,       
And feel that I may never live to trace       
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;       
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!       
That I shall never look upon thee more,    
Never have relish in the faery power       
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore       
  Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,       
  Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.       

To Sleep   
     
O soft embalmer of the still midnight!       
  Shutting with careful fingers and benign       
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,       
  Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;       
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,               
  In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,       
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws       
  Around my bed its lulling charities;       
  Then save me, or the passèd day will shine       
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;    
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords       
  Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;       
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,       
  And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.       

Last Sonnet   
     
Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art—       
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,       
And watching, with eternal lids apart,       
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,       
The moving waters at their priest-like task               
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,       
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask       
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—       
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,       
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,    
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,       
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,       
  Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,       
  And so live ever—or else swoon to death.       

From Sleep and Poetry

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.
Then will I pass the countries that I see
In long perspective, and continually
  The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold