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FANCY
by 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 forthand 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 inglewhen
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 thereand send abroad
With a mind self-overaw'd
Fancyhigh-commission'd:- send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bringin spite of frost
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring theeall 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 stillmysterious 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:
Andin the same moment- hark!
'Tis the early April lark
Or the rookswith busy caw
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shaltat one glancebehold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum'd lilliesand the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinthalway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leafand 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. -
Ohsweet 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 eyehowever blue
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voicehowever soft
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Letthenwinged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eyed 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'swhen her zone
Slipt its golden claspand down
Fell her kirtle to her feet
While she held the goblet sweet
And Jove grew languid. Mistress fair!
Thou shalt have that tressed hair
Adonis tangled all for spite
And the mouth he would not kiss
And the treasure he would miss;
And the hand he would not press
And the warmth he would distress. -
O the ravishment- the bliss!
Fancy has herthere she is-
Never fulsomeever new
There she steps! and tell me who
Has a mistress so divine?
Be the palate ne'er so fine
She cannot sicken.- Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash
Where she's tether'd to the heart:
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring.-
Let the winged Fancy roam
Pleasure never is at home. - -
THE END