Why hath the rose faded and fallen, yet these eyes have not seen? Why hath the bird sung shrill in the tree -- and this mind deaf and cold? Why have the rains of summer veiled her flowers with their sheen And this black heart untold? Here is calm Autumn now, the woodlands quake, And, where this splendour of death lies under the tread, The spectre of frost will stalk, and a silence make, And snow's white shroud be spread. O self! O self! Wake from thy common sleep! Fling off the destroyer's net. He hath blinded and bound thee. In nakedness sit; pierce thy stagnation, and weep; Or corrupt in thy grave -- all Heaven around thee. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. by JOHN KEATS TO THE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIME by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS A MARTYR'S MASS; FATHER MIGUEL PRO, EXECUTED AY MEXICO CITY, 1927 by ALFRED BARRETT PSALM 147 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE SHALL I? by FLAVIA CAMP CANFIELD THE VIGIL OF AIDEN, SELECTION by THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS A STRANGER MINSTREL; TO MRS. ROBINSON BEFORE HER DEATH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |