A PORTRAIT

He is to weet a melancholy carle:
Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,
As hath the seeded thistle, when a parle
It holds with Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair
Its light balloons into the summer air;
Thereto his beard had not begun to bloom.
No brush had touched his cheek, or razor sheer;
No care had touched his cheek with mortal doom,
But new he was and bright, as scarf from Persian loom.

Ne cared he for wine, or half and half;
Ne cared he for fish, or flesh, or fowl;
And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;
He 'sdeigned the swine-head at the wassail-bowl:
Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl;
Ne with sly lemans in the scorner's chair;
But after water-brooks this pilgrim's soul
Panted and all his food was woodland air;
Though he would oft-times feast on gilliflowers rare.

The slang of cities in no wise he knew,
_Tipping the wink_ to him was heathen Greek;
He sipped no "olden Tom," or "ruin blue,"
Or Nantz, or cherry-brandy, drunk full meek
By many a damsel brave and rouge of cheek;
Nor did he know each aged watchman's beat,
Nor in obscured purlieus would be seek
For curled Jewesses, with ankles neat,
Who, as they walk abroad, make tinkling with their feet.

_John Keats._

ANNABEL LEE

'Twas more than a million years ago,
Or so it seems to me,
That I used to prance around and beau
The beautiful Annabel Lee.
There were other girls in the neighborhood
But none was a patch to she.

And this was the reason that long ago,
My love fell out of a tree,
And busted herself on a cruel rock;
A solemn sight to see,
For it spoiled the hat and gown and looks
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

We loved with a love that was lovely love,
I and my Annabel Lee,
And we went one day to gather the nuts
That men call hickoree.
And I stayed below in the rosy glow
While she shinned up the tree,
But no sooner up than down kerslup
Came the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And the pallid moon and the hectic noon
Bring gleams of dreams for me,
Of the desolate and desperate fate
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
And I often think as I sink on the brink
Of slumber's sea, of the warm pink link
That bound my soul to Annabel Lee;
And it wasn't just best for her interest
To climb that hickory tree,
For had she stayed below with me,
We'd had no hickory nuts maybe,
But I should have had my Annabel Lee.

_