Ode On A Grecian Urn
by John Keats
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
Not an Ode on the Shards of an Anasazi Bowl
“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious Priest…?”
“Ode on a Grecian Urn“, John Keats
Long emptied of melted winter snows, or porridge leavings,
Long absent of touch by bearing hands
Cupped round and lifting up for deft drinking;
Unmistakable signal of changes’ slanting grade,
Of blown grit, of a sudden drop, or a forgetful toss;
An unbridgeable rift between the brief golden sun of your high curve
And the broken clay designs in our hands we temporarily hold,
Points toward our own approaching passage, our own going stopped.
The intricacy of our design is a continent’s survey.
The broken tarmac we’ll leave behind will bear no decoration,
Nor other meaning carry.
Your contents emptied out and spread,
Dispersed as seed for next year’s crop,
Or offered as food in prayer or sacrifice,
Or medicine tipped on edge against the lip:
What placement between earth and sky,
What point of origin within the four directions did you descry?
What gods or elements into you did fall, or from you sip?
What bound of air or earth or stars did you shape for your fashioners,
That which we now call upon in our curiosity?
Unadorned, a thing made plain already,
The clay we’re setting in the midst of the hottest flame is a crucible,
There to put name to the insistent questions we declare.
Your fractured decoration bespeaks of a different care.
This One & This One 