From " Ode on Melancholy"

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple od Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her Sovran Shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
 

From " Ode to Psyche"

O GODDESS! Hear the tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft - conched ear:
Surely I dreamt to - day, or did i see
The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wonder'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw, two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp' ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
'Mid hush'd, cool - rooted flowers, fragrant - eyed,
Blue, silever - white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm - breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their Lips touch'd not, but had no bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft - handed Slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye - dawn of aurorean Love:
The winged boy I knew;
But who was thou, O happy, happy dove?
His psyche true!
 

To Some Ladies

What though while the wonders of nature expoloring,
I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend;
Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,
Bless Cynthia's face, the enthusiast's friend:

Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes,
With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove;
Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes,
Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews.

Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling?
Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare?
Ah! you list to the nightingale's tender condoling,
Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air.

'Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,
I see you are treading the verge of the sea:
And now! ah, I see it - you just now are stooping
To pick up the keep - sake intended for me.

If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending,
Had brought me a gem from the fret - work of heaven;
And smiles, with his star - cheering voice sweetly blending,
The blessing of Tighe had melodiously given;

It had not created a warmer emotion
Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you
Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean
Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw.

For, indeed, 'tis a sweet and peculiar pleasure,
(And blissful is he who such happiness finds,)
To possess but a span of the hour of leisure,
In elegant, pure, and aerial minds.
 

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom - friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch - eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage - trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o 'er - brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad my find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor;
Thy hair soft - lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half - reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder - press, with patient look,
Or by a cyder - press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft - dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives of dies;
And full - grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge - crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red - breast whistles from a garden - croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.