TO AUTUMN

(Written 1819?)

I.

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-
eaves run;

5 To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

10

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.

15

20

II.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may 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,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

III.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,25 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 or dies; 30 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.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

(1820)

I.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;

The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

II.

5 Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

10

III.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a faery's child; 15 Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

20

V.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean and sing A faery's song.

VI.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

VII.

25 She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said, I love thee true.

30

VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gaz'd and sighed deep; And there I shut her wild sad eyesSo kissed to sleep.

IX.

And there we slumber'd on the moss, And there I dream'd, ah woe betide, 35 The latest dream I ever dream'd, On the cold hill side.

40

X.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd-"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

XI.

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill side.

XII.

45 And this is why I sojourn here.

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.

SONNETS

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

(Written 1816)

XI.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
5 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

10

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

SONNET

(June, 1816)

To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair

And open face of heaven,-to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
5 Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear

10

Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlets' bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.

XV.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET

(Written December 30th, 1816)

The poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; 5 That is the Grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.