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,
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,
Ariel guides you o'er the sea Of life from your nativity.
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-voiced 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
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
"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,
And there she wept, and sighed full sore,30 And there I shut her wild, wild eyes, With kisses four.
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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