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 to 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. 



I cannot see what flowers are at my feet. 



Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs. 

 But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 



Wherewith the seasonable month endows 



The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ; 



White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine ; 



Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves ; 



And mid-May's eldest child, 



The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine. 



The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 



Darkling I listen ; and for many a time 



I have been half in love with easeful Death, 



Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme. 

 To take into the air my quiet breath ; 



