Poem by John Keats

To Byron

   Sonnet

Byron! how sweetly sad thy melody!
Attuning still the soul to tenderness,
As if soft Pity, with unusual stress,
Had touch'd her plaintive lute, and thou, being by,
Hadst caught the tones, nor suffer'd them to die.
O'ershadowing sorrow doth not make thee less
Delightful: thou thy griefs dost dress
With a bright halo, shining beamily,
As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil,
Its sides are ting'd with a resplendent glow,
Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail,
And like fair veins in sable marble flow;
Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale,
The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe. 

1. On Receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt
2. Bards of Passion and of Mirth
3. Specimen of Induction to a Poem
4. Calidore
5. To (“Hadst Thou Liv’d in Days of Old…”)

Percy Shelley To Byron ("O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age") 1818

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