XL.

She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears— Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-droop'd lamp was flickering by each door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

XLI.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;
Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flaggon by his side:
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:

By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

XL 3 Or perhaps at glaring watch with ready spears

Holograph, cancelled.

6-8 But noise of winds besieging the high towers...
But the besieging Storm...

The Lamps were flickering death shades on the walls
Without, the Tempest kept a hollow roar...
The Lamps were flickering...

The Lamps were dying in...

But here and there a Lamp was flickering out...
A drooping Lamp was flickering here and there.
Holograph, rejected.

XLI 1, 2 Like Spirits into the wide-paven hall

They glide,-and to the iron porch in haste ;

Holograph, rejected.

4 a large empty beaker Woodhouse.
6 And paced round Madeline all angerless,...
But with a calmed eye his mistress owns,

Holograph, rejected.

But quick his calmed eye its mistress owns... Woodhouse. 8 The chain lay silent on the footway stones Woodhouse.

XLII.

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.

That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmar'd. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitch'd, with meagre face deform ;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.
Angela went off

XLII 6-9

Twitch'd with the Palsy; and with face deform The beadsman stiffen'd, twixt a sigh and laugh Ta'en sudden from his beads by one weak little cough. G. Keats.

can't know the unknowing happines & Nightengal knows too much of the world,

longing

POEMS

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

I.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth !
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:

Title] the for a Draft, Transcripts, and Annals.

dreaminess, world of
foghtfulness

I 1 Small winged Dryad Draft, rejected opening: painful
numbness falls Draft, rejected.

4 past] hence Draft, cancelled.

II 2 Cooling an age Draft, rejected.

6 true, the] true and Draft, Dilke, Museum, and Annals :
blissful for blushful Museum.

7 beaded] cluster'd Draft.

10 fade away Draft and 1820; away omitted by Woodhouse, Dilke,

Museum, and Annals.

III.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

searchu for escope

What thou among the leaves hast never known, from would..

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray 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.

IV.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

problems

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, escapes trouves thre

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.

V.

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.

in

prety

world of its too mightengah, it's too dank he can't su

III 6 Where youth grows pale and thin and old and dies
Draft, but the variation rejected.

7 sorrow] grief Draft, cancelled.

IV 1 to] with Draft, cancelled.

7 Cluster'd] Clusted Draft, rejected, but nothing substituted.

10 Sidelong stands cancelled in Draft before Through.

V 1 See 1820 and Draft: tell Woodhouse.

2 In the Draft blooms is cancelled after what.

9 dewy] sweetest Draft, Dilke, Museum, and A

beauties

VI.

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;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vainTo thy high requiem become a sod.

VII.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

VI 4 quiet] painless Draft: there is absolutely no ground for giving this as a variant of easeful in line 2 as Mr. de Sélincourt does.

7 forth] thus Draft, &c. and Annals.

8 ecstasy!] Extacy Draft.

9 wouldst] would Draft.

10 To Draft and 1820: For Draft, rejected, Transcripts, and Annals. The Draft has a cancelled opening, But requiem'd.

VII 5 song] voice Draft, cancelled.

9 magic] the wide Draft, cancelled.

10 perilous] keelless Draft, cancelled: faery 1820, fairy Draft, Dilke, Museum, and Annals.

VIII 1 Forlorn!... word] Folorn!... world Draft.

2 me back] to me Draft rejected: my sole self! 1820; unto

myself Draft and Woodhouse.

4 deceiving] deceitful Draft, rejected.