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There sat a raven 'mid the pines so dark,
The pines so silent and so dark at morn
A ragged bird with feathers rough and torn,
Whetting his grimy beak upon the bark,...

Mr. Raven was perched upon a limb,
And Reynard the Fox looked up at him;
For the Raven held in his great big beak
A morsel the Fox would go far to seek.

Said the Fox, in admiring tones: "My word!...

King's daughter sitting in tower so high,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Why weepest thou as the clouds go by?
Fair sing the swans 'twixt firth and field.
Why weepest thou in the window-seat...

Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,
And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.
...

(To Laura.)


My Laura, your rebukes are prudish;
For although flattery is rudish,
Yet deference, not more than just,
May be received without disgust.
Am I a privilege denied...

'Build me my tomb,' the Raven said,
'Within the dark yew-tree,
So in the Autumn yewberries
Sad lamps may burn for me.
Summon the haunted beetle,
From twilight bud and bloom,...

[1]

To Madame De La Sabli're.[2]

A temple I reserved you in my rhyme:
It might not be completed but with time.
Already its endurance I had grounded
Upon this charming art, divinely founded;...

An Eagle swooped from out the sky,
And carried off a sheep.
A Raven seeing him, said: "I
Could do that too if I should try.
His meal comes mighty cheap."

Of all that well-fed flock was one...

[1]

The bird of Jove bore off a mutton,
A raven being witness.
That weaker bird, but equal glutton,
Not doubting of his fitness
To do the same with ease,
And bent his taste to please,...

There all the barrel-hoops are knit,
There all the serpent-tails are bit,
There all the gyres converge in one,
There all the planets drop in the Sun.

With patient toil, from day to day,
The printed page he scann'd,
The page of learned book, or sheet
With news from foreign land.

And people thought him wond'rous wise,
And he himself was vain...

The leaf is faded, and decayed the flower,
The birds have ceased to sing in wayside bower,
The babbling brook is silenced by the cold,
And hill and vale the frost and snow enfold....

Hope that you may understand!
What can books of men that wive
In a dragon-guarded land,
Paintings of the dolphin-drawn
Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons
Do, but awake a hope to live
That had gone...

O realm of azure! O realm of light and colour, of youth and happiness! I have beheld thee in dream. We were together, a few, in a beautiful little boat, gaily decked out. Like a swan's breast the white sail swelled below the st...

(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger under the palms of Southern California.)


Under the palms of San Diego
Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease,...

Folks is talkin' 'bout de money, 'bout de silvah an' de gold;
All de time de season 's changin' an' de days is gittin' cold.
An' dey 's wond'rin' 'bout de metals, whethah we'll have one er two....

All through the blood-red Autumn,
When the harvest came to the full;
When the days were sweet with sunshine,
And the nights were wonderful,--
The Reaper reaped without ceasing.
...

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he;...

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;...

The harvest is nodding on valley and plain,
To the scythe and the sickle its treasures must yield;
Through sunshine and shower we have tended the grain;
'Tis ripe to our hand!--to the field--to the field!...