"Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats (1795-1821)

Ode to a Nightingale

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-winged 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-delved earth, 

Tasting of Flora and the country green, 

  Dance, and Provencal 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-stained 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 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.

 

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 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 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 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.

 

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 

  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam 

    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.  

 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 

  To toil me back from thee to my sole self! 

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well 

  As she is fam’d 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?

"Full Fathom Five" by Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Full Fathom Five

Full fathom five thy father lies;
    Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
    Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
                              Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.

Note: This short poem is the second section of Ariel's song, and part of Shakespeare's "The Tempest."

"This Living Hand" by John Keats (1795 –1821)

This Living Hand

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—

I hold it towards you.

"The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe (1809 – 1849)

The Raven

 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“ ’Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”

 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —

Nameless here for evermore.

 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“ ’Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—

Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

This it is and nothing more.”

 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

Darkness there and nothing more.

 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.

 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

‘Tis the wind and nothing more!”

 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as “Nevermore.”

 

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered — not a feather then he fluttered—

Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

 

But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

 

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

 

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

 

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!

 published 1845