So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
45 Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swinged censer teeming;
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. 50 Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane0 temple
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
55 Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;8
And there by zephyrs, streams,0 and birds, and bees,
breezes
The moss-lain Dryads0 shall be lull'd to sleep;
wood nymphs
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
60 With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
65 That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love9 in! Apr. 1819 1820
6. The moon, supervised by the goddess Phoebe 8. I.e., the trees shall stand, rank against rank, like (Diana). layers of feathers. 7. I.e., of worshipers. 9. I.e., Cupid, god of love.
.
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE / 903
Ode to a Nightingale1
i
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock2 I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe3-wards had sunk:
5 Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,?
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
10 Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
2
O, for a draught of vintage!0 that hath been wine
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora4 and the country green,
Dance, and Proven.al song,5 and sunburnt mirth!
is O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,6
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
