JOHN KEATS

' Whence came ye, merry Damsels ! whence came ye, So many, and so many, and such glee? Why have ye left your bowers desolate,

Your lutes, and gentler fate?' ' We follow Bacchus ! Bacchus on the wing,

A-conquering !

Bacchus, young Bacchus ! good or ill betide, We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide: Come hither, lady fair, and joined be

To our wild minstrelsy ! '

' Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs ! whence came ye,

So many, and so many, and such glee ?

Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left

Your nuts in oak-tree cleft ? ' 'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,

And cold mushrooms;

For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth ; Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth ! Come hither, lady fair, and joined be

To our mad minstrelsy ! '

Over wide streams and mountains great we went, And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,

With Asian elephants :

Onward these myriads with song and dance, With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance, Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil :

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