Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by John Keats, the very famous, very beloved John Keats, and this is one of his more famous, more beloved poems. It's called Ode on a Grish and Earn.

This poem is on the longer end of the poems that I typically

read here on the show, but it is one of the best poems ever written, certainly one of the most

famous poems, as I said, and so it's worth sharing with you. So I'm going to dive right into reading it.

This is Ode on a Grecian urn by John Keats.

Thou still unravished bride of quietness, thou foster child of silence and slow time,

sylvan historian who canst thus express a flower-tail more sweetly than our rhyme.

What leaf-ringed 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 maiden's loth, what mad pursuit,

what struggle to escape, what pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

Therefore, ye soft pipes play on, not to the sensual ear, but more endeared,

pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

Fair youth beneath the trees thou canst not leave thy song,

nor ever can those trees be bare.

Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet,

Do not grieve.

She cannot fade,

Though thou hast not thy bliss,

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair.

Ah, happy, happy bows, thou cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu.

And happy melodist, unwearied, forever piping songs, forever new.

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