Lament who will the ribald line

Which tells his lapse from duty —

How kissed the maddening lips of wine, Or wanton ones of beauty

But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and heaven,

That he who loved like Magdalen,

Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render

The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor!

But who his human heart has laid

To nature's bosom nearer?

Who sweetened toil like him, or paid

To love a tribute dearer?

Through all his tuneful art how strong The human feeling gushes!

The very moonlight of his song

Is warm with smiles and blushes!

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry!
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his Highland Mary!

ODE TO THE BARDS

JOHN KEATS

John Keats was born in London, England, October 29, 1795, and died at Rome, Italy, February 23, 1821. This poem was written on the blank page before Beaumont and Fletcher's "The Fair Maid of the Inn."

B

ARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-liv'd in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns

Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, trancèd thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls left behind you
ye
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-liv'd in regions new!

TO THE SKYLARK

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Field Place, Sussex, England, August 4, 1792, and was drowned in the Gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822.

H

AIL to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the setting sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale, purple even
Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight,

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over-

flowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow-clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden,

In a palace tower,

Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: