Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense

As though of hemlock I had drunk

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot

But being too happy in thy happiness

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless

Singest of summer in full-throated ease

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been

Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth

Tasting of Flora and the country green

Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth

O for a beaker full of the warm South

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

And purple-stained mouth

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen

And with thee fade away into the forest dim

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known

The weariness, the fever and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs

Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin, and dies

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow

Away, away, I will fly to thee

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards

But on the viewless wings of Poesy

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards

Already with thee tender is the night

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne

Clustered around by all her starry fays

But here there is no light

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

But in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild

White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine

Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves

And mid-May's eldest child

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves

Darkling I listen, and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death

Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme

To take into the air my quiet breath

Now more than ever it seems rich to die

To cease upon the midnight with no pain

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain

To thy high requiem become a sod

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird

No hungry generations tread thee down

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home

She stood in tears amid the alien corn

The same that oft-times hath charmed the magic casements

Opening on the foam of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self

Adieu, the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf

Adieu, adieu, thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream

Up the hill-side and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades

Was it a vision or a waking dream?

Fled is that music - do I wake or sleep?