John Keats

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ON THE SEA...

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell

Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell

Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.

Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from where it sometime fell,

When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.

Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired,

Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea -

Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,

Or fed too much with cloying melody -

Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood

Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!

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TO...(*)

Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb,

Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand,

Since I was tengled in thy beauty's web,

And snared by the ungloving of thy hand.

And yet I never look on midnight sky,

But I behold thine eyes' well memoried light;

I cannot look upon the rose's dye,

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight;

I cannot look on any budding flower,

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips,

And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour

Its sweets in the wrong sense: - Thou dost eclipse

Every delight with sweet remembering,

And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.

(*) To a lady whom he saw for a few moments at Vauxhall.