Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
  Steady thy laden head across a brook;
  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, 
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. 
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe, 
As a calm darkens among water-lights. 
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine, 
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, 
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth, 
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself: 
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; 
All pleasures and all pains, remembering 
The bough of summer and the winter branch. 
These are the measures destined for her soul. 

III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. 
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds, 
Until our blood, commingling, virginal, 
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star. 
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be 
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now, 
A part of labor and a part of pain, 
And next in glory to enduring love, 
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

IV

She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy, 
Nor any old chimera of the grave, 
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home, 
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds, 
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

V

She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, 
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths, 
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness, 
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, 
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, 
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there, 
The silken weavings of our afternoons, 
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, 
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be, 
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, 
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, 
The windy lake wherein their lord delights, 
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, 
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound, 
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering. 
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun, 
Or old dependency of day and night, 
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, 
Of that wide water, inescapable. 
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail 
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky, 
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink, 
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
    The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
    Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
    The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
    She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
    The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
    Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
    With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
    What cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
    Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
    She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
    Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
    A favorite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
    And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
    Nor all that glisters, gold.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,  
  The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,  
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,  
  And leaves the world to darkness and to me.  
  
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,           
  And all the air a solemn stillness holds,  
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,  
  And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:  
  
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower  
  The moping owl does to the moon complain            
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,  
  Molest her ancient solitary reign.  
  
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade  
  Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,  
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,            
  The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.  
  
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,  
  The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,  
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,  
  No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.            
  
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn  
  Or busy housewife ply her evening care:  
No children run to lisp their sire's return,  
  Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.  
  
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,            
  Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;  
How jocund did they drive their team afield!  
  How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!  
  
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,  
  Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;            
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile  
  The short and simple annals of the Poor.  
  
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,  
  And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave  
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:—            
  The paths of glory lead but to the grave.  
  
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault  
  If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,  
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault  
  The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.            
  
Can storied urn or animated bust  
  Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath,  
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,  
  Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?  
  
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid            
  Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;  
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,  
  Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:  
  
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,  
  Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;            
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,  
  And froze the genial current of the soul.  
  
Full many a gem of purest ray serene  
  The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:  
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,            
  And waste its sweetness on the desert air.  
  
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast  
  The little tyrant of his fields withstood,  
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,  
  Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.            
  
Th' applause of listening senates to command,  
  The threats of pain and ruin to despise,  
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,  
  And read their history in a nation's eyes  
  
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone            
  Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;  
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,  
  And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;  
  
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,  
  To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,            
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride  
  With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.  
  
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife  
  Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;  
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life            
  They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.  
  
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect  
  Some frail memorial still erected nigh,  
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,  
  Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.            
  
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,  
  The place of fame and elegy supply:  
And many a holy text around she strews,  
  That teach the rustic moralist to die.  
  
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,            
  This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,  
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,  
  Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?  
  
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,  
  Some pious drops the closing eye requires;            
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,  
  E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.  
  
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,  
  Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;  
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,            
  Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,— 
  
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,  
  'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn  
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,  
  To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;             
  
'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech  
  That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,  
His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,  
  And pore upon the brook that babbles by.  
  
'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,             
  Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;  
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,  
  Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.  
  
'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,  
  Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;             
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,  
  Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;  
  
'The next with dirges due in sad array  
  Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,—
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay             
  Graved on the stone beneath yon agèd thorn:'  
  
The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth  
  A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;  
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth  
  And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.             
  
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;  
  Heaven did a recompense as largely send:  
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,  
  He gain'd from Heaven, 'twas all he wish'd, a friend.  
  
No farther seek his merits to disclose,             
  Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,  
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)  
  The bosom of his Father and his God.