John Keats. 1795-1821 -- Written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy 'The Fair Maid of the Inn'
BARDS of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too
Doubled-lived in regions new?
Yes
and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon
With the noise of fountains wondrous
And the parle of voices thund'rous
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
trancèd 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!