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47
KEATS TO FANNY BRAWNE
You are the spirit of the haunted mere,O'erhung by whispering foliage, and you wear
The shifting silver of the wayward moon;
In you lies all the glory of the world,
The splendours and the shadows of the sea;
And all that grows and glows in you is shown,
Red clouds of morning and the last of day.
You are that Helen whose sweet smile allured
The Grecian keels across Ionian foam;
I think of you with all those damsels bright,
Who, rising from green waves or forests dark,
Waylaid the traveller to a perilous doom,
Whether to silent foam of fairyland,
Or the dense secret of entangling woods.
And all about you is the mystery
That haunts and tempts, and gleams, but ever flees.
And yet at times I feel you but a shadow,
Owing your magic to this fiery soul;
I, I with golden fable gird you round,
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With shapes from gorgeous cloudland and from dream.
And ah, my tarrying with you is but brief,
For death, red-bright, wells upward on my lips.
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