I

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 thy happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt 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-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

III.

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 gray 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.

IV.

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, Clustered 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.

V.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed 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 covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eyes.

VI.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused 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.

VII.

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 oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII.

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?

NOTES.

"This poem," says Leigh Hunt, "was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter."

1. =Lethe-wards.= That is, towards Lethe. Lethe was one of the rivers of Hell. Its name means "forgetfulness." Milton describes it thus:

"A slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets-- Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain."

--Paradise Lost, ii, 583.

2. =Dryad.= A wood-nymph. From Gr. drus, an oak tree. The life of the Dryad was supposed to be bound up with that of her tree.

"The quickening power of the soul, like Martha, is 'busy about many things,' or, like a Dryad, living in a tree."--Sir John Davis.

3. =Provençal song.= Song of the troubadours, a school of lyric poets that flourished in Provence, in the south of France, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. A love song.

4. =Hippocrene.= The "Fountain of the Horse" (Fons Caballinus). A fountain on Mount Helicon, Boeotia, sacred to the Muses. It was said to have been produced by the horse Pegasus striking the ground with his feet. Its waters were supposed to be a source of poetical inspiration.

Longfellow, in "The Goblet of Life," says:

"No purple flowers--no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe."

5. =Bacchus and his pards.= Bacchus was frequently represented as riding on the back of a leopard, a tiger, or a lion, or in a chariot drawn by panthers.

=pards.= Spotted beasts.

See Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," third stanza, page 160.

6. Compare with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act ii, sc. i:

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."

7. =darkling.= In the dark. The word is very rarely used.

8. =requiem.= A dirge, or funeral song. "So called from the first word in the Catholic mass for the dead, Requiem æternum dona iis Domine (Give eternal rest to them, O Lord)."--Brand.

=become a sod.= Compare with Ecclesiastes, xii, 7: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was."

9. =alien corn.= See Ruth, ii. Why alien corn? Longfellow, in his poem on "Flowers," says:

"Everywhere about us they are glowing-- Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn."