ODE TO A GRECIAN URN
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child
of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale
more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or
mortals, or of both,
In
Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods
are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What
pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?