Ode / Keats, John

                                      1816
                                      ODE
                       ("BARDS OF PASSION AND OF MIRTH")
                                 by John Keats
ODE

        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 wond'rous,
        And the parle of voices thund'rous;
        With the whisper of heaven's trees
        And one another, in soft ease
        Seated on Elysian lawns
        Brows'd 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, every day,
        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!

                        THE END
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