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

Автор: John Keats
Издательство: Bookwire
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9788027230198
Скачать книгу
pale, and with an awed face,

       Among his brothers of the mountain chase.

       In midst of all, the venerable priest

       Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,

       And, after lifting up his aged hands,

       Thus spake he: “Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!

       Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:

       Whether descended from beneath the rocks

       That overtop your mountains; whether come

       From vallies where the pipe is never dumb; Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs

       Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze

       Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge

       Nibble their fill at ocean’s very marge,

       Whose mellow reeds are touch’d with sounds forlorn

       By the dim echoes of old Triton’s horn:

       Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare

       The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;

       And all ye gentle girls who foster up

       Udderless lambs, and in a little cup Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:

       Yea, every one attend! for in good truth

       Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.

       Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than

       Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains

       Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains

       Green’d over April’s lap? No howling sad

       Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had

       Great bounty from Endymion our lord.

       The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour’d His early song against yon breezy sky,

       That spreads so clear o’er our solemnity.”

      Thus ending, on the shrine he heap’d a spire

       Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;

       Anon he stain’d the thick and spongy sod

       With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.

       Now while the earth was drinking it, and while

       Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,

       And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright

       ‘Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

      “O thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang

       From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth

       Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death

       Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;

       Who lov’st to see the hamadryads dress

       Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;

       And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken

       The dreary melody of bedded reeds–

       In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;

       Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth

       Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx–do thou now,

       By thy love’s milky brow!

       By all the trembling mazes that she ran,

       Hear us, great Pan!

      “O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles

       Passion their voices cooingly ‘mong myrtles,

       What time thou wanderest at eventide

       Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom

       Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom

       Their ripen’d fruitage; yellow girted bees

       Their golden honeycombs; our village leas

       Their fairest blossom’d beans and poppied corn;

       The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,

       To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries

       Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies

       Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year

       All its completions–be quickly near, By every wind that nods the mountain pine,

       O forester divine!

      “Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies

       For willing service; whether to surprise

       The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;

       Or upward ragged precipices flit

       To save poor lambkins from the eagle’s maw;

       Or by mysterious enticement draw

       Bewildered shepherds to their path again;

       Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, And gather up all fancifullest shells

       For thee to tumble into Naiads’ cells,

       And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;

       Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,

       The while they pelt each other on the crown

       With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown–

       By all the echoes that about thee ring,

       Hear us, O satyr king!

      “O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,

       While ever and anon to his shorn peers A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,

       When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn

       Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,

       To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:

       Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,

       That come a swooning over hollow grounds,

       And wither drearily on barren moors:

       Dread opener of the mysterious doors

       Leading to universal knowledge–see,

       Great son of Dryope, The many that are come to pay their vows

       With leaves about their brows!

      Be still the unimaginable lodge

       For solitary thinkings; such as dodge

       Conception to the very bourne of heaven,

       Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,

       That spreading in this dull and clodded earth

       Gives it a touch ethereal–a new birth:

       Be still a symbol of immensity;

       A firmament reflected in a sea; An element filling the space between;

       An unknown–but no more: we humbly screen

       With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,

       And giving out a shout most heaven rending,

       Conjure thee to receive our humble Pæan,

       Upon thy Mount Lycean!

      Even while they brought the burden to a close,

       A shout from the whole multitude arose,

       That lingered in the air like dying rolls

       Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.

       Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,

       Young companies nimbly began dancing

       To the swift