To Jane: the Invitation by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Best and brightest, come away! / Fairer far than this fair Day, / Which, like thee to those in sorrow, / Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow / To the rough Year just awake / In its cradle on the brake. / The brightest hour of unborn Spring, / Through the winter wandering, / Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn / To hoar February born, / Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, / It kissed the forehead of the Earth, / And smiled upon the silent sea, / And bade the frozen streams be free, / And waked to music all their fountains, / And breathed upon the frozen mountains, / And like a prophetess of May / Strewed flowers upon the barren way, / Making the wintry world appear / Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns, / To the wild wood and the downs- / To the silent wilderness / Where the soul need not repress / Its music lest it should not find / An echo in another's mind, / While the touch of Nature's art / Harmonizes heart to heart. / I leave this notice on my door / For each accustomed visitor: - / ‘I am gone into the fields / To take what this sweet hour yields; - / Reflection, you may come to-morrow, / Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. - / You with the unpaid bill, Despair,- / You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,- / I will pay you in the grave,- / Death will listen to your stave. / Expectation too, be off! / To-day is for itself enough; / Hope, in pity mock not Woe / With smiles, nor follow where I go; / Long having lived on thy sweet food, / At length I find one moment's good / After long pain-with all your love, / This you never told me of.'