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Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?

O Attic shape! Fair attitude!

O Attic shape! Fair attitude!

When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” 1 —that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” 1 —that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Forever piping songs forever new.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter.

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape?

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape?

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

But strength alone though of the Muses born Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchers Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.

Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; ’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm.

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed.

The poetry of earth is never dead.

How many bards gild the lapses of time!

He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely.

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Thou art unseen—but yet I hear thy shrill delight.