https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf
Ode on a Grecian Urn
By John Keats
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
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In
Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What
struggle to escape?
What
pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet,
but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear,
but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the
trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold
Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the
goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For
ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs!
that cannot shed
Your
leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist,
unwearied,
For
ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more
happy, happy love!
For
ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion
far above,
That
leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
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?
What little town by river
or sea shore,
Or
mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy
streets for evermore
Will
silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair
attitude! with brede
Of
marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and
the trodden weed;
Thou,
silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold
Pastoral!
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,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Tennyson "Ulysses"
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.