By John Keats
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unweari-ed,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
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 dressed?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this 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 the 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.
1820
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John Keats was a genius. This poem is like a puzzle inside a bleeding puzzle 🙂
My rudimentary understanding of this poem is that it is about a vase, a beautiful urn manufactured (handmade) from Greece. LOL
Anyway this vase is decorated with vignettes of day to day lives of an ancient generation. A segment of the etchings was of men pursuing women. Obviously political correctness and the laws that we have today were not being applied yet. LOL Though we cannot hear what went on, it is there depicted on the vase as light as day.
Another sketch is of a youth playing his lute or pipe while sitting under a tree with his girlfriend. It says that a melody being played and heard can be sweet but sweeter still if you just imagine it as it will play forever. The girlfriend lying on arms will be forever beautiful, forever young, never change and age a day. And the tree will never shed its leaves. The permanence is gratifying.
And then the last picture is of the villager leading a cow or heifer all garland in flowers to be sacrificed. Keats or the one examining the vase started contemplating that one day the village will become desolate and empty of people and no one is left to tell its story.
But the vase will remain to silently narrate what gone on.
John Keats was so romantic!