O Love! who bewailest The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
Now, in humbler, happier lot,
This is all remembered not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is
For your cradle, your home, and your Imprisoned, for some fault of his, bier?
Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high: Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.
Ariel to Miranda:-Take
This slave of Music, for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee,
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,
And, too intense, is turned to pain;
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who,
From life to life, must still pursue
Your happiness; for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples, he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.
When you die, the silent Moon,
In her interlunar swoon,
Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel.
When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen star of birth,
In a body like a grave;
From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.
The artist who this idol wrought,
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast, 50
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree,-
Oh, that such our death may be!-
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven's fairest
The artist wrought this loved Guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully,
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamored tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
For it had learned all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voicèd fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 75
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way—
All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,
Has tracked your steps, and served your By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day:
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean rolled
For simple sheep: and such are daffodils 15 Its gathering waves-ye felt it not. The With the green world they live in; and
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
Of summer nights collected still to make 30 The morning precious: beauty was awake!
That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest
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 valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din; 40
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
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.
"I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful-a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.
"I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;1
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.
"She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said'I love thee true.'
"She took me to her elfin grot,
Singest of summer in full-throated I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each
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