Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. _Ode to a Grecian Urn._ The "shapes of epic greatness" throng closer and mightier around him. The storm and stress of the day's thoughts have utterly drained his small reserve of strength. Outworn by the vehemence of his own conflicting emotions, John Keats lays his aching eyes and dark brown head upon his arm as it rests along the table, and sinks into a dreamless slumber of exhaustion; while, a "Happy melodist, unwearied, For ever singing songs for ever new," the nightingale chants on outside. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Day with Keats, by May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron