Ode

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,     Ye have left your souls on earth!     Have ye souls in heaven too,     Double-lived in regions new?     Yes, and those of heaven commune     With the spheres of sun and moon;     With the noise of fountains wondrous,     And the parle of voices thundrous;     With the whisper of heavens trees     And one another, in soft ease     Seated on Elysian lawns     Browsd by none but Dians fawns;     Underneath large blue-bells tented,     Where the daisies are rose-scented,     And the rose herself has got     Perfume which on earth is not;     Where the nightingale doth sing     Not a senseless, tranced thing,     But divine melodious truth;     Philosophic numbers smooth;     Tales and golden histories     Of heaven and its mysteries.     Thus ye live on high, and then     On the earth ye live again;     And the souls ye left behind you     Teach us, here, the way to find you,     Where your other souls are joying,     Never slumberd, never cloying.     Here, your earth-born souls still speak     To mortals, of their little week;     Of their sorrows and delights;     Of their passions and their spites;     Of their glory and their shame;     What doth strengthen and what maim.     Thus ye teach us, every day,     Wisdom, though fled far away.     Bards of Passion and of Mirth,     Ye have left your souls on earth!     Ye have souls in heaven too,     Double-lived in regions new!