Ode to Keats

An Accusation

O poet who wooed the darkling

O courter of spectre death

Thou hast left in your wake, a lover

Who worshipped thine every breath.

Wounded, the heart thou left behind

Now quakes in a fev’rish dream

Pining in vain again to hear

Thy tender, melencholy theme.

O cruel man! to abandon

That which thou at first bestirred

With wonder, glories and delight

Word upon each melodius word.

Thy gift is such, my poet wild

Thou givest and thence depart!

Thou playest the faerie’s henchman

Making changlings of every heart.

Transformed in verse, the human face

Ah, what thou hath done to me!

Awake O sleeper and arise

The nightingale hath called for thee.

It is thus the soul rejoices;

That thou hath pierced her dearly

Or perhaps an ancient wound re-open’d

That Psyche may now see it clearly.