KEATS

by: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

      HE young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
      The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
      The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
      To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
      The nightingale is singing from the steep;
      It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
      Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold
      A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
      Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
      On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name
      Was writ in water." And was this the meed
      Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write:
      "The smoking flax before it burst to flame
      Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."

MORE POEMS BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

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