That deep-browed 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

Looked at each other with a wild surmise.Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

FANCY

E

IVER 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-tippel fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: what do then?
Sit thee by the ingle when
The sear fagot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,

And the cakèd snow is shuffled
From the plowboy'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 commissioned: send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring in spite of frost
Beauties that the earth had lost;
She will bring thee, altogether,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped 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 reaped 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 field-mouse peep
Meager 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 bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,

While the autumn breezes sing.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Everything is spoilt by use:
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring,-
Let the wingèd Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home.

LA BELLE

DAME SANS MERCI

Alone and palely loitering?

H what can ail thee, wretched wight,

The sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
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 cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads

Full beautiful, a faëry's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean, and sing A faëry's song.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone:
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

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 gazed and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes-
So kissed to sleep.

And there we slumbered on the moss,
And there I dreamed-ah! woe betide
The latest dream I ever dreamed

On the cold hillside.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd "La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall !"

I saw their starved lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hillside.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless eremite, The moving aters at their priestless 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, Pillowed 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.

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES

T. AGNES' Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was!

was cold;

The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen

grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death, Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he

saith.