III
Then we looked closelier at Time,
And saw his ghostly arms revolving
To sweep off woeful things with prime,
Things sinister with things sublime
Alike dissolving.
READ BY MOONLIGHT
I paused to read a letter of hers
By the moon’s cold shine,
Eyeing it in the tenderest way,
And edging it up to catch each ray
Upon her light-penned line.
I did not know what years would flow
Of her life’s span and mine
Ere I read another letter of hers
By the moon’s cold shine!
I chance now on the last of hers,
By the moon’s cold shine;
It is the one remaining page
Out of the many shallow and sage
Whereto she set her sign.
Who could foresee there were to be
Such letters of pain and pine
Ere I should read this last of hers
By the moon’s cold shine!
AT A HOUSE IN HAMPSTEAD
SOMETIME THE DWELLING OF JOHN KEATS
O poet, come you haunting here
Where streets have stolen up all around,
And never a nightingale pours one
Full-throated sound?
Drawn from your drowse by the Seven famed Hills,
Thought you to find all just the same
Here shining, as in hours of old,
If you but came?
What will you do in your surprise
At seeing that changes wrought in Rome
Are wrought yet more on the misty slope
One time your home?
Will you wake wind-wafts on these stairs?
Swing the doors open noisily?
Show as an umbraged ghost beside
Your ancient tree?