# Keats; poems published in 1820/Fancy

* FANCY.
* Ever let the Fancy roam,
* Pleasure never is at home:
* At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
* Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
* Then let winged Fancy wander
* Through the thought still spread beyond her:
* Open wide the mind's cage-door,
* She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
* O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
* Summer's joys are spoilt by use,10
* And the enjoying of the Spring
* Fades as does its blossoming;
* Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
* Blushing through the mist and dew, ​Cloys with tasting: What do then?
* Sit thee by the ingle, when
* The sear faggot blazes bright,
* Spirit of a winter's night;
* When the soundless earth is muffled,
* And the caked snow is shuffled20
* From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
* When the Night doth meet the Noon
* In a dark conspiracy
* To banish Even from her sky.
* Sit thee there, and send abroad,
* With a mind self-overaw'd,
* Fancy, high-commission'd:—send her!
* She has vassals to attend her:
* She will bring, in spite of frost,
* Beauties that the earth hath lost;30
* She will bring thee, all together,
* All delights of summer weather; ​All the buds and bells of May,
* From dewy sward or thorny spray
* All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
* With a still, mysterious stealth:
* She will mix these pleasures up
* Like three fit wines in a cup,
* And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear
* Distant harvest-carols clear;40
* Rustle of the reaped corn;
* Sweet birds antheming the morn:
* And, in the same moment—hark!
* 'Tis the early April lark,
* Or the rooks, with busy caw,
* Foraging for sticks and straw.
* Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
* The daisy and the marigold;
* White-plum'd lilies, and the first
* Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;50 ​Shaded hyacinth, alway
* Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
* And every leaf, and every flower
* Pearled with the self-same shower.
* Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
* Meagre from its celled sleep;
* And the snake all winter-thin
* Cast on sunny bank its skin;
* Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
* Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,60
* When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
* Quiet on her mossy nest;
* Then the hurry and alarm
* When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
* Acorns ripe down-pattering,
* While the autumn breezes sing. ​Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
* Every thing is spoilt by use:
* Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
* Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid70
* Whose lip mature is ever new?
* Where's the eye, however blue,
* Doth not weary? Where's the face
* One would meet in every place?
* Where's the voice, however soft,
* One would hear so very oft?
* At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
* Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
* Let, then, winged Fancy find
* Thee a mistress to thy mind:80
* Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
* Ere the God of Torment taught her
* How to frown and how to chide;
* With a waist and with a side ​White as Hebe's, when her zone
* Slipt its golden clasp, and down
* Fell her kirtle to her feet,
* While she held the goblet sweet,
* And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh
* Of the Fancy's silken leash;90
* Quickly break her prison-string
* And such joys as these she'll bring.—
* Let the winged Fancy roam
* Pleasure never is at home.