154 THE SINGING OF BIRDS 



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 grey 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 to-morrow. 



Away ! away ! for I will fly with 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, 

 Cluster'd 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. 



