1 |
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My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains |
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My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
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Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains |
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One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
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'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, |
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But being too happy in thine happiness,— |
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That thou, light-winged
Dryad of the trees, |
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In some
melodious plot |
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Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, |
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Singest of summer in
full-throated ease.
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10 |
2 |
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O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been |
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Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
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Tasting of Flora and the country green, |
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Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt
mirth! |
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O for a beaker full of the warm South, |
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Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
|
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With beaded bubbles
winking at the brim, |
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And
purple-stained mouth; |
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That I might drink, and leave the world
unseen, |
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And with thee fade away
into the forest dim:
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20 |
3 |
|
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget |
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What thou among the leaves hast never known,
|
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The weariness, the fever, and the fret |
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Here, where men sit and hear each other
groan; |
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Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, |
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Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and
dies; |
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Where but to think is to
be full of sorrow |
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And
leaden-eyed despairs, |
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Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
|
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Or new Love pine at them
beyond to-morrow.
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30 |
4 |
|
Away! away! for I will fly to thee, |
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Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, |
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But on the viewless wings of Poesy, |
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Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
|
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Already with thee! tender is the night, |
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And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
|
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Cluster'd around by all
her starry Fays; |
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But
here there is no light, |
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Save what from heaven is with the breezes
blown |
|
Through verdurous glooms
and winding mossy ways.
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40 |
5 |
|
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, |
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Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
|
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But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet |
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Wherewith the seasonable month endows |
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The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; |
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White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
|
|
Fast fading violets
cover'd up in leaves; |
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And
mid-May's eldest child, |
|
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, |
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The murmurous haunt of
flies on summer eves.
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50 |
6 |
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Darkling I listen; and, for many a time |
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I have been half in love with easeful Death,
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Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, |
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To take into the air my quiet breath; |
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Now more than ever seems it rich to die, |
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To cease upon the midnight with no pain, |
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While thou art pouring
forth thy soul abroad |
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In such
an ecstasy! |
|
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in
vain— |
|
To thy high requiem become
a sod.
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60 |
7 |
|
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! |
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No hungry generations tread thee down; |
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The voice I hear this passing night was heard |
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In ancient days by emperor and clown: |
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Perhaps the self-same song that found a path |
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Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for
home, |
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She stood in tears amid
the alien corn; |
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The
same that oft-times hath |
|
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
|
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Of perilous seas, in faery
lands forlorn.
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70 |
8 |
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Forlorn! the very word is like a bell |
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To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
|
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Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well |
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As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. |
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Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades |
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Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
|
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Up the hill-side; and now
'tis buried deep |
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In the
next valley-glades: |
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Was it a vision, or a waking dream? |
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Fled is that music:—Do I
wake or sleep? |
80 |