Haunted Forest



O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
    Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
    Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired
    From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
    Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
        Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
    From swingèd censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
    Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming.

-John Keats (1795-1821),
Ode to Psyche







images © 2000 by Randy Wang
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