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On Hearing The Bag-Pipe And Seeing "The Stranger" Played At Inverary

By John Keats

Topics: classic

Of late two dainties were before me plac'd     Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent,     From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent     That Gods might know my own particular taste:     First the soft Bag-pipe mourn'd with zealous haste,     The Stranger next with head on bosom bent     Sigh'd; rueful again the piteous Bag-pipe went,     Again the Stranger sighings fresh did waste.     O Bag-pipe thou didst steal my heart away     O Stranger thou didst re-assert thy sway     Again thou Stranger gav'st me fresh alarm     Alas! I could not choose. Ah! my poor heart     Mum chance art thou with both oblig'd to part.

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"Of late two dainties were before me plac'd..."

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Author:John Keats

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"Of late two dainties were before me plac'd..." by John Keats

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John Keats

About John Keats

John Keats (1795–1821) was an English Romantic poet whose odes—"Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "To Autumn"—are among the most celebrated in the language. Despite dying of tuberculosis at 25, he produced work of extraordinary sensory richness and philosophical depth.

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