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- 1816
- ODE
- ("BARDS OF PASSION AND OF MIRTH")
- by John Keats
- ODE
-
- Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
- Ye have left your souls on earth!
- Have ye souls in heaven too,
- Double-lived in regions new?
- Yes, and those of heaven commune
- With the spheres of sun and moon;
- With the noise of fountains wond'rous,
- And the parle of voices thund'rous;
- With the whisper of heaven's trees
- And one another, in soft ease
- Seated on Elysian lawns
- Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;
- Underneath large blue-bells tented,
- Where the daisies are rose-scented,
- And the rose herself has got
- Perfume which on earth is not;
- Where the nightingale doth sing
- Not a senseless, tranced thing,
- But divine melodious truth;
- Philosophic numbers smooth;
- Tales and golden histories
- Of heaven and its mysteries.
-
- Thus ye live on high, and then
- On the earth ye live again;
- And the souls ye left behind you
- Teach us, here, the way to find you,
- Where your other souls are joying,
- Never slumber'd, never cloying.
- Here, your earth-born souls still speak
- To mortals, of their little week;
- Of their sorrows and delights;
- Of their passions and their spites;
- Of their glory and their shame;
- What doth strengthen and what maim.
- Thus ye teach us, every day,
- Wisdom, though fled far away.
-
- Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
- Ye have left your souls on earth!
- Ye have souls in heaven too,
- Double-lived in regions new!
-
-
- THE END
-