526. Ode on the Poets

John Keats (1795—1821)

  BARDS of Passion and of Mirth

  Ye have left your souls on earth!

  Have ye souls in heaven too,

  Double-lived in regions new?

  —Yes, and those of heaven commune

  With the spheres of sun and moon;

  With the noise of fountains wonderous

  And the parle of voices thunderous;

  With the whisper of heaven’s trees

  And one another, in soft ease

  Seated on Elysian lawns

  Browsed by none but Dian’s fawns;

  Underneath large blue-bells tented,

  Where the daisies are rose-scented,

  And the rose herself has got

  Perfume which on earth is not;

  Where the nightingale doth sing

  Not a senseless, trance´d thing,

  But divine melodious truth;

  Philosophic numbers smooth;

  Tales and golden histories

  Of heaven and its mysteries.

  Thus ye live on high, and then

  On the earth ye live again;

  And the souls ye left behind you

  Teach us, here, the way to find you,

  Where your other souls are joying,

  Never slumber’d, never cloying.

  Here, your earth-born souls still speak

  To mortals, of their little week;

  Of their sorrows and delights;

  Of their passions and their spites;

  Of their glory and their shame;

  What doth strengthen and what maim:—

  Thus ye teach us, every day,

  Wisdom, though fled far away.

  Bards of Passion and of Mirth

  Ye have left your souls on earth!

  Ye have souls in heaven too,

  Double-lived in regions new!