Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Keats. 17951821631. 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 | 5 |
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, | 10 |
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? | 15 |
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 | 20 |
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, | 25 |
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; | 30 |
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, | 35 |
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; | 40 |
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, | 45 |
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; | 50 |
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 | 55 |
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, | 60 |
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 | 65 |
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 | 70 |
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, | 75 |
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: | 80 |
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 | 85 |
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; | 90 |
Quickly break her prison-string, | |
And such joys as these she’ll bring.— | |
Let the wingèd Fancy roam, | |
Pleasure never is at home. |