1 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

 My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

 One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

 But being too happy in thine happiness,—

      That ***thou***, *light-winged Dryad of the trees*

           In some melodious plot

      Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

           Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

 *Cool'd a long age* in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

 ***Dance***, and Provençal song, and sunburnt **mirth**!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

      With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

           And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

 And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

3

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

      *What thou among the leaves hast never known*,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

      Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

      Where youth grows pale, and *spectre-thin*, and **dies**;

           *Where but **to think** is **to be full of sorrow***

                And leaden-eyed despairs,

      Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

           Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

4

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

      Not charioted by **Bacchus** and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

      Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

      And haply the **Queen-Moon** is on her throne,

                Cluster'd around by all her starry **Fays**;

                     *But here there is no light,*

      Save what *from heaven* is *with the breezes blown*

                Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

      *Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,*

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

      Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

      White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

                Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

                     And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

      The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

      I have been half in love with easeful **Death**,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

      To take into the air my quiet breath;

                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

      To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

                *While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad*

                          *In such an ecstasy!*

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

      *To thy high requiem become a sod.*

7

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

      No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

      *In ancient days by emperor and clown:*

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

           She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

                The same that oft-times hath

           *Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam*

                *Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.*

8

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

 To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

 As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

 Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

      Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

           In the next valley-glades:

 Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

      Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

— John Keats

New Recording.m4a

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7MoTYqKN9Fj6Dvph8cFDGX?si=8c2815812dad48a8

John Keats

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