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To John Keats

Great master! Boyish, sympathetic man!
Whose orbed and ripened genius lightly hung
From life's slim, twisted tendril and there swung
In crimson-sphered completeness; guardian
Of crystal portals through whose openings fan
The spiced winds which blew when earth was young,
Scattering wreaths of stars, as Jove once flung
A golden shower from heights cerulean.
Crumbled before thy majesty we bow.
Forget thy empurpled state, thy panoply
Of greatness, and be merciful and near;
A youth who trudged the highroad we tread now

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To John Hamilton Reynolds

O that a week could be an age, and we
Felt parting and warm meeting every week,
Then one poor year a thousand years would be,
The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:
So could we live long life in little space,
So time itself would be annihilate,
So a day's journey in oblivious haze
To serve ourjoys would lengthen and dilate.
O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!
To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant!
In little time a host of joys to bind,
And keep our souls in one eternal pant!
This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught

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To James Whitcomb Riley

On his "Book of Joyous Children"

Yours is a garden of old-fashioned flowers;
Joyous children delight to play there;
Weary men find rest in its bowers,
Watching the lingering light of day there.

Old-time tunes and young love's laughter
Ripple and run among the roses;
Memory's echoes, murmuring after,
Fill the dusk when the long day closes.

Simple songs with a cadence olden--
These you learned in the Forest of Arden:
Friendly flowers with hearts all golden--
These you borrowed from Eden's garden.

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To J.W

Set not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.

Set not thy foot on graves;
Nor seek to unwind the shroud
Which charitable time
And nature have allowed
To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.

Set not thy foot on graves;
Care not to strip the dead
Of his sad ornament;
His myrrh, and wine, and rings,
His sheet of lead,
And trophies buried;
Go get them where he earned them when alive,
As resolutely dig or dive.

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To his Watch, When He Could Not Sleep

Uncessant Minutes, whil'st you move
 you tell
The time that tells our life,  which
 though it run
Never so fast or farr,  you'r new
 begun
Short steps shall overtake;  for though life well

May scape his own Account, it shall not yours,
You are Death's Auditors, that both divide
And summ what ere that life inspir'd endures
Past a beginning, and through you we bide

The doom of Fate, whose unrecall'd Decree
You date, bring, execute; making what's new,

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To His Mistress

I

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye?
II
Without thy light what light remains in me?
Thou art my life; my way, my light's in thee;
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.
III
Thou art my life-if thou but turn away
My life's a thousand deaths. Thou art my way-
Without.thee, Love, I travel not but stray.
IV
My light thou art-without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darken'd with eternal night.
My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.
V

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To His Mistress

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye?

Without thy light what light remains in me?
Thou art my life; my way, my light's in thee;
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.

Thou art my life-if thou but turn away
My life's a thousand deaths. Thou art my way-
Without.thee, Love, I travel not but stray.

My light thou art-without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darken'd with eternal night.
My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.

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To His Coy Love

I PRAY thee, leave, love me no more,
   Call home the heart you gave me!
I but in vain that saint adore
   That can but will not save me.
These poor half-kisses kill me quite--
   Was ever man thus served?
Amidst an ocean of delight
   For pleasure to be starved?

Show me no more those snowy breasts
   With azure riverets branched,
Where, whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
   Yet is my thirst not stanched;

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To Florence

Sister, when at the grassy mound I stand
Which holds in cold embrace thy mortal frame,
The tears unbidden rush into my mortal eyes
And wash away from me all save the sight
Of thy pure life and patient suffering.
And ever and anon comes memory
Of days gone by when health's bright sun did shine
Upon us both. And tho within the Cloud
I stand, content I am to think of thee
And live as best I may, till by thy side
In God's own time, I lay me down to rest.

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