90 0 / JOHN KEATS
And sure in language strange she said?
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot? cave
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.3 9
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd?Ah! woe betide!
The latest' dream I ever dream'd last
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 starv'd lips in the gloam? twilightWith horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
45 And this is why 1 sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Apr. 1819 1820
Sonnet to Sleep
O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
5 O soothest' Sleep! if so it please thee, close, softest
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the Amen ere thy poppy1 throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me or the passed day will shine
10 Upon my pillow, breeding many woes: Save me from curious0 conscience, that still hoards scrupulous
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like the mole;
3. Keats commented in a letter to his brother and temper the Imagination as the Critics say with sister-in- law, 'Why four kisses?you will say?why Judgment. I was obliged to choose an even number four because I wish to restrain the headlong impet-that both eyes might have fair play.' uosity of my Muse?she would have fain said 1. Opium is made from the dried juice of the 'score' without hurting the rhyme?but we must opium poppy.
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ODE TO PSYCHE / 901
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,2
And seal the hushed casket of my soul. Apr. 1819 1838
Ode to Psyche1
0 Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers,0 wrung verses
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched2 ear:
5 Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
1 wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
