The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: John Keats
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
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isbn: 9788027230198
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by the Basil green,

       And why it flourish’d, as by magic touch;

       Greatly they wonder’d what the thing might mean: They could not surely give belief, that such

       A very nothing would have power to wean

       Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,

       And even remembrance of her love’s delay.

      LIX.

      Therefore they watch’d a time when they might sift

       This hidden whim; and long they watch’d in vain;

       For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,

       And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;

       And when she left, she hurried back, as swift

       As bird on wing to breast its eggs again; And, patient, as a hen-bird, sat her there

       Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.

      LX.

      Yet they contriv’d to steal the Basil-pot,

       And to examine it in secret place:

       The thing was vile with green and livid spot,

       And yet they knew it was Lorenzo’s face:

       The guerdon of their murder they had got,

       And so left Florence in a moment’s space,

       Never to turn again. — Away they went,

       With blood upon their heads, to banishment.

      LXI.

      O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!

       O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!

       O Echo, Echo, on some other day,

       From isles Lethean, sigh to us — O sigh!

       Spirits of grief, sing not your “Well-a-way!”

       For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;

       Will die a death too lone and incomplete,

       Now they have ta’en away her Basil sweet.

      LXII.

      Piteous she look’d on dead and senseless things,

       Asking for her lost Basil amorously; And with melodious chuckle in the strings

       Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry

       After the Pilgrim in his wanderings,

       To ask him where her Basil was; and why

       ’Twas hid from her: “For cruel ’tis,” said she,

       “To steal my Basil-pot away from me.”

      LXIII.

      And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,

       Imploring for her Basil to the last.

       No heart was there in Florence but did mourn

       In pity of her love, so overcast. And a sad ditty of this story born

       From mouth to mouth through all the country pass’d:

       Still is the burthen sung— “O cruelty,

       To steal my Basil-pot away from me!”

      Endymion Book I

       Table of Contents

      A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

       Its loveliness increases; it will never

       Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

       A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

       Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

       Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

       A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

       Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

       Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

       Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

       Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

       From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

       Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

       For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

       With the green world they live in; and clear rills

       That for themselves a cooling covert make

       ‘Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,

       Rich with a sprinkling of fair muskrose blooms:

       And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead;

       All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

       An endless fountain of immortal drink,

       Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

      Nor do we merely feel these essences

       For one short hour; no, even as the trees

       That whisper round a temple become soon

       Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,

       The passion poesy, glories infinite,

       Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,

       That, whether there be shine, or gloom o’ercast,

       They alway must be with us, or we die.

      Therefore, ’tis with full happiness that I

       Will trace the story of Endymion.

       The very music of the name has gone

       Into my being, and each pleasant scene

       Is growing fresh before me as the green

       Of our own vallies: so I will begin

       Now while I cannot hear the city’s din; Now while the early budders are just new,

       And run in mazes of the youngest hue

       About old forests; while the willow trails

       Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails

       Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year

       Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer

       My little boat, for many quiet hours,

       With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.

       Many and many a verse I hope to write,

       Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white, Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees

       Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,

       I must be near the middle of my story.

       O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,

       See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,

       With universal tinge of sober gold,

       Be all about me when I make an end.

       And now at once, adventuresome, I send

       My herald thought into a wilderness:

       There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed

       Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

      Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread

       A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed

       So plenteously all weed-hidden roots

       Into o’erhanging boughs, and precious fruits.

       And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,

       Where no man