69 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
69 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
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1816
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TO-
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("WHAT CAN I DO TO DRIVE AWAY")
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by John Keats
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What can I do to drive away
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Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,
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Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!
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Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,
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What can I do to kill it and be free
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In my old liberty?
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When every fair one that I saw was fair
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Enough to catch me in but half a snare,
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Not keep me there:
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When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things,
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My muse had wings,
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And ever ready was to take her course
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Whither I bent her force,
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Unintellectual, yet divine to me;-
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Divine, I say!- What sea-bird o'er the sea
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Is a philosopher the while he goes
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Winging along where the great water throes?
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How shall I do
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To get anew
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Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more
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Above, above
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The reach of fluttering Love,
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And make him cower lowly while I soar?
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Shall I gulp wine? No, that is vulgarism,
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A heresy and schism,
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Foisted into the canon law of love;-
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No,- wine is only sweet to happy men;
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More dismal cares
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Seize on me unawares,-
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Where shall I learn to get my peace again?
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To banish thoughts of that most hateful land,
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Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked strand
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Where they were wreck'd and live a wrecked life;
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That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour
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Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore,
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Unown'd of any weedy-haired gods;
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Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods,
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Iced in the great lakes, to afflict mankind;
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Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind,
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Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh herbag'd meads
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Make lean and lank the starv'd ox while he feeds;
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There flowers have no scent, birds no sweet song,
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And great unerring Nature once seems wrong.
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O, for some sunny spell
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To dissipate the shadows of this hell!
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Say they are gone,- with the new dawning light
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Steps forth my lady bright!
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O, let me once more rest
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My soul upon that dazzling breast!
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Let once again these aching arms be plac'd,
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The tender gaolers of thy waist!
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And let me feel that warm breath here and there
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To spread a rapture in my very hair,-
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O, the sweetness of the pain!
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Give me those lips again!
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Enough! Enough! it is enough for me
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To dream of thee!
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THE END
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