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 vain

To thy high requiem become a sod.

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.

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 famed to do, deceiving elf. 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?
John Keats

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD

T

BLOOM'D

HEN with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,

And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,

And I in the middle, as with companions and as holding the hands of companions. I fled forth to the hiding receiving night, that talks not,

Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,

To the solemn shadowy cedars, and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me; The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three;

And he sang what seem'd the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,

From the fragrant cedars, and the ghostly pines so still,

Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,

As I held, as if by their hands, my comrades in the night;

And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

Come, lovely and soothing Death,

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,

In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Prais'd be the fathomless universe,

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;

And for love, sweet love - But praise! praise! praise!

For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with soft feet,

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?

Then I chant it for thee-I glorify thee above all;

I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong Deliveress!

When it is so when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,

Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee, glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose, saluting theeadornments and feastings for thee; And the sights of the open landscape, and the high-spread sky, are fitting,

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star; The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;

And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled Death,

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song!

Over the rising and sinking waves-over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide; Over the dense-pack'd cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,

I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!

Walt Whitman

JOY, SHIPMATE, JOY!

OY, shipmate, joy!

JoYpsigte my soul at death I cry,)

Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore,
Joy, shipmate, joy!

Walt Whitman

U

REQUIEM

NDER the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson