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Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free,
A leafy luxury, seeing I could please
With these poor offerings,1 a man like
thee.

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES2 1817 1817

My spirit is too weak-mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die 5 Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep, Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.

Such dim-conceived glories of the brain 10 Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;

So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude

Wasting of old Time-with a billowy main

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Their shadows, with the magic hand of 20 Sipping beverage divine,

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No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill

Past the heath and up the hill;
15 There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone Echo gives the half
To some wight,2 amaz'd to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June
20 You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars3 to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold;
25 Never one, of all the clan,

Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair hostess Merriment,
30 Down beside the pasture Trent;
For he left the merry tale
Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone, the merry morris din;
Gone, the song of Gamelyn;
35 Gone, the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the "grenè shawe";
All are gone away and past!
And if Robin should be cast

1 J. H. Reynolds, who had sent Keats two son-
nets which he had written on Robin Hood.
See Keats's letter to Reynolds (p. 862).
person
The Pleiades.

2

A popular dance in which the dancers often took the parts of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and other fictitious characters.

Sudden from his turfed grave, 40 And if Marian should have Once again her forest days,

She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks, Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes, 45 Have rotted on the briny seas;

She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her-strange! that honey Can't be got without hard money!

So it is: yet let us sing,
50 Honor to the old bow-string!
Honor to the bugle-horn!

Honor to the woods unshorn!
Honor to the Lincoln green !1
Honor to the archer keen!
55 Honor to tight2 Little John,
And the horse he rode upon!
Honor to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honor to Maid Marian,

60 And to all the Sherwood-clan! Though their days have hurried by Let us two a burden3 try.

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He has his lusty spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

5 He has his summer, when luxuriously Spring's honied eud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its autumn, when his wings 10 He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness-to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

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A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

5 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, 10 Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of

all,

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Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I 35 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 40 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 45 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, 50 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, 55 See it half finish'd: 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: 60 There let its trumpet blow, and quickly

dress

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90

Edg'd round with dark tree tops, through

which a dove

Would often beat its wings, and often too A little cloud would move across the blue?

Full in the middle of this pleasantness There stood a marble altar, with a tress Of flowers budded newly; and the dew Had taken fairy phantasies to strew Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve, 95 For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire And so the dawned light in pomp receive. Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre Of brightness so unsullied, that therein A melancholy spirit well might win Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing 100 Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine

sun;

The lark was lost in him; cold springs had

run

To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass; 1 leopard

Man's voice was on the mountains; and the

mass

105 Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,

To feel this sunrise and its glories old.

Now while the silent workings of the dawn

Were busiest, into that self-same lawn All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped 110 A troop of little children garlanded; Who gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry

Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were
sated

115 With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then

Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes
breaking

120 Through copse-clad valleys,-ere their death, o'ertaking

The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

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pear'd,

Up-follow'd by a multitude that rear'd 165 Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought

car,

Easily rolling so as scarce to mar

The freedom of three steeds of dapple

brown:

Who stood therein did seem of great re

nown

Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,

170 Showing like Ganymede to manhood grown;

And, for those simple times, his garments

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