Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades.
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep?

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

I.

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?

Conflict & reality

And dream world.

speaks to um

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

II.

because

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard belong to imagination.

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;

VIII 9-10 Was it a vision real or waking dream

Fled is that Music-do I wake or sleep? Draft.

Was it a vision? or a waking dream?

Fled is that music? do I wake or sleep.

Dilke, and Museum save that there is a ? at the end.

Was it a vision? Or a waking dream?

Fled is that music? Do I wake or sleep? Annals.
The 1820 text (adopted here) is of course right.

Title] On a Grecian Urn Annals.

I 8 men or gods] Gods or Men Annals.

9 What love? what dance? what struggle to escape?

Dilke, Museum, and Annals.

II 5, 6 Fair Youth, beneath the trees thou can'st not leave
Thy song, nor ever bid the spring adieu; Annals.

8 yet,] O Dilke, Museum, and Annals.

infinite life of

um prevent it

speaks fate mity

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

III.

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.

& le past way of

nortalgen

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! • contrast-hast bar skicking
in worn times of work
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.

III 2 ever] never Annals.

IV 4 flanks] sides Dilke and Museum.

7 this] Dilke, Museum, Annals, and 1820; its Smith 1840 and

1841 and Houghton.

10 e'er] ne'er Dilke.

V 7 shalt] wilt Dilke, Museum, and Annals.

8 a] as Museum.

um is colo-eternal zet only mobject

O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched ear:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

to

fanciful for reality, you

I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,

The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes? ↳ thinks I saw it.

And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof 10
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:

'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,

And ready still past kisses to outnumber

At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
The winged boy I knew; Cupid

But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
His Psyche true!

O latest born and loveliest vision far

Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy !

Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

she

The textual variations in the Ode to Psyche are from two holographs,

one on a separate quarto sheet, the other embodied in a letter.

6 awaken'd] awaked Letter.

10 roof] fan Letter.

13 'Mid] In Quarto, rejected.

14 Blue, freckle-pink, and budded Syrian, Letter.

20 eye-dawn] dawning Quarto, rejected.

23 true!] true? Letter.

26 Phoebe's] Night's nude, Night's full, and Night's orb'd Quarto, rejected.

just about

to make bue

suggestive

maximen tention. unrealized

20

potentiality

pleasure is hope

musser pezen

Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor altar heap'd with flowers;

Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan

Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming ;

No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

30

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When' holy were the haunted forest boughs, nostalgra

Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retir'd
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swinged censer teeming ;

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

40

50

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant

pain,

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees

Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress

28 hast] hadst Letter.

32 and 34 No (8 times)] Nor (8 times) Quarto, rejected.

36 brightest !] Bloomiest! Letter.

42 among] above Quarto, rejected.

43 own] clear Quarto, rejected.

44 So] O Letter.

47 From] Thy Quarto, rejected.

Thy altar heap'd with flowers Margin of Quarto.

57 lull'd] charm'd Letter, cancelled.

60

With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:
And there shall be for thee all soft delight

That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!

lass.

maginative

perception

FANCY

EVER let the fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

Then let winged Fancy wander

Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind's cage-door,

She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when

The sear faggot blazes bright,

Spirit of a winter's night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,

And the caked snow is shuffled

62 feign] frame Letter.

64 So bower'd goddess will I worship thee Quarto, rejected. 67 To let warm Love glide in Quarto, rejected.

10

20

After the closing line Keats wrote playfully in the letter-Here endethe ye Ode to Psyche.

The variations noted below are from two manuscripts, the holograph in a journal-letter sent to George Keats and his wife (winter of 1818-19),

and that in Sir Charles Dilke's "Endymion."

6 Towards heaven still spread beyond her. MSS.

15 tasting] kissing MSS.

16 by the ingle] in an ingle MSS.