John Keats


ODE ON THE POETS


Bards of Passion and of Mirth

Ye have left your souls on earth!

Have ye souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new?



----Yes, and those of heaven commune

With the spheres of sun and moon;

With the noise of fountains wonderous

And the parle of voices thunderous;

With the whisper of heaven's trees

And one another, in soft ease

Seated on Elysian lawns

Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;

Underneath large blue-bells tented,

Where the daisies are rose-scented,

And the rose herself has got

Perfume which on earth is not;

Where the nightingale doth sing

Not a senseless, tranced thing,

But divine melodious truth;

Philosophic numbers smooth;

Tales and golden histories

Of heaven and its mysteries.



   Thus ye live on high, and then

On the earth ye live again;

And the souls ye left behind you

Teach us, here, the way to find you,

Where your other souls are joying,

Never slumber'd, never cloying.

Here, your earth-born souls still speak

To mortals, of their little week;

Of their sorrows and delights;

Of their passions and their spites;

Of their glory and their shame;

What doth strengthen and what maim:----

Thus ye teach us, everyday,

Wisdom, though fled far away.



   Bards of Passion and of Mirth

Ye have left your souls on earth!

Ye have souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new!