THE TWO SPIRITS
First Spirit
O thou, who plumed with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A shadow tracks the flight of fire—
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there—
Night is coming!
The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!
And the moon will smile with gentle light
On my golden plumes where’er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight,
And make night day.
First Spirit
But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken
Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain;
See, the bounds of the air are shaken—
Night is coming!
The red swift clouds of the hurricane
Yon declining sun have overtaken;
The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain—
Night is coming!
Second Spirit
I see the light, and I hear the sound;
I’ll sail on the flood of the tempests dark,
With the calm within and the light around
Which makes night day:
And then, when the gloom is deep and stark,
Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound;
My moon-like flight thou then may’st mark
On high, far away.
Some say there is a precipice
Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin
O’er piles of snow and chasms of ice
’Mid Alpine mountains;
And that the languid storm pursuing
That winged shape, for ever flies
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing
Its aëry fountains.
Some say, when nights are dry and clear,
And the death-dews sleep on the morass,
Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller,
Which make night day;
And a silver shape, like his early love, doth pass
Up-borne by her wild and glittering hair,
And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,
He finds night day.
JOHN KEATS
1795–1821
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
‘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;
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 sidelong would she bend, 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,
And there she wept and sighed full sore:
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
‘And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamed
On the cold hill’s side.
‘I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cried—“La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill’s side.
‘And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.’