Classic Poem

Piped to the Spirit of John Keats

I

WOULD that my lips might pour out in thy praise
A fitting melody — an air sublime, —
A song sun-washed and draped in dreamy haze —
The floss and velvet of luxurious rhyme:
A lay wrought of warm languors, and o'er-brimmed
With balminess, and fragrance of wild flowers
Such as the droning bee ne'er wearies of —
Such thoughts as might be hymned
To thee from this midsummer land of ours
Through shower and sunshine, blent for very love.

II

Deep silences in woody aisles where-through
Cool paths go loitering, and where the trill
Of best-remembered birds hath something new
In cadence for the hearing — lingering still
Through all the open day that lies beyond;
Reaches of pasture-lands, vine-wreathen oaks,
Majestic still in pathos of decay; —
The road — the wayside pond
Wherein the dragon-fly an instant soaks
His filmy wing-tips ere he flits away.

III

And I would pluck from out the dank, rich mold,
Thick-shaded from the sun of noon, the long
Lithe stalks of barley, topped with ruddy gold,
And braid them in the meshes of my song;
And with them I would tangle wheat and rye,
And wisps of greenest grass the katy-did
E'er crept beneath the blades of, sulkily,
As harvest-hands went by;
And weave of all, as wildest fancy bid,
A crown of mingled song and bloom for thee.