Fancy
-
John Keats
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
From the
ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw'd,
Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!
She has
vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the
earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or
thorny
spray;
All the heaped
Autumn's wealth,
With a still,
mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit
wines in a cup,
And thou shalt
quaff it:--thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet
birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment, hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy
caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the
marigold;
White-plum'd lillies, and the first
Hedge-grown
primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same
shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the
bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn
breezes sing.
Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where's the
cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where's the eye, however
blue,
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the
voice, however
soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-ey'd as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its
golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet
And Jove grew
languid.--Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her
prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring.--
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.