In this, the last in my series of blogs on John Keats, I have gone for variety: a selection of poems that vary in form, content, and length; and they are here to be enjoyed. But as the Internet is a global medium, and not everyone has easy access to Keats's writings, each poem is accompanied with a brief introduction.
_______________
On his walking tour of Scotland with his friend Charles Armitage Brown, in 1818, Keats called at Robert Burns' Cottage at Ayr. And though he tried to make light of it, it was a disappointing experience, in large measure it seems, because he was deprived of the opportunity for quiet reflection. In this letter to J. H. Reynolds, he writes of the experience, but not before he has described the beauty of Burns country:
"We were talking on different and indifferent things, when on a sudden we turned a corner upon the immediate County of Air- the Sight was as rich as possible - I had no Conception that the native place of Burns was so beautiful - the idea I had was more desolate, his Rigs of barley seemed always to me but a few strips of Green on a cold hill - O prejudice! it was rich as Devon - I endeavour'd to drink in the Prospect, that I might spin it out to you as the silkworm makes silk from Mulberry leaves - I cannot recollect it - Besides all the Beauty, there were the Mountains of Annan [for Arran] Isle, black and huge over the Sea - We came down upon every thing suddenly - there were in our way, the "bonny Doon," with the Brig that Tam O' Shanter cross'd - Kirk Alloway, Burns's Cottage and then the Brigs of Ayr - First we stood upon the Bridge across the Doon; surrounded by every Phantasy of Green in tree, Meadow, and Hill, - the Stream of the Doon, as a Farmer told us, is covered with trees from head to foot - you know those beautiful heaths so fresh against the weather of a summers evening - there was one stretching along behind the trees..."
As for the visit to Burns' cottage:
"We went to the cottage and took some Whiskey - I wrote a sonnet for the mere sake of writing some lines under the roof - They are so bad I cannot transcribe them - The man at the Cottage was a great Bore with his Anecdotes - I hate the rascal - his life consists in fuz, fuzzy, fuzziest - He drinks glasses five for the quarter and twelve for the hour, - he is a mahogany faced old Jackass who knew Burns..."
"This mortal body of a thousand days"
This mortal body of a thousand days
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
budded bays: poetic fame
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine own barley-bree,
barley-bree: Ale
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal:
Yet can I stamp my foot upon the floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou last tramp
èd o'er and o'er,
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name -
bumper: a toast
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!
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This next poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, first appeared along with other poems, in Keats journal letter to George and Georgiana Keats. The letter was written between February and May 1819; and whether or not it was his first attempt, or Keats was transcribing the poem from a previous draft, he made alterations as he went along. In her commentary on Keats, Miriam Allott suggests, that Keats borrowed the title from Alain Chartier's poem of the same name, written in 1424. And she makes a direct connection between the poem, and Keats's feelings for Fanny Brawne, adding, that it: "is strongly influenced by memories of Spenser's fatal enchantress in The Faerie Queene, and by various traditional ballads expressing the destructiveness of love, which are also the chief models for its diction and metrical style.."
La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad
I
Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
II
Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
III
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast witherest too.
IV
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
V
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
VI
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
VII
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
"I love thee true".
VIII
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
IX
And there she lull
èd me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
X
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried-"La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!"
XI
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gap
èd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
XII
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
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It was in this same journal letter that Keats first mentioned this next poem, St Agnes Eve; and given that he described it as "a little Poem", one can't help but wonder how far he had got in its composition, for it runs to 42 stanzas.Well it is here because I have always liked it. It is rich in contrast, and atmosphere, moving as it does from the austere to the sensual; and there is intrigue and drama in the telling. On the downside, and by today's standards, there are a few archaic words scattered throughout the poem. But against that, if we accept it for what it is, a story, the poem has a happy ending.
St Agnes, who was a fourth century martyr at Rome, is the patron saint of virgins; and the Eve of her feast-day falls on the 20th of January. Superstition had it, that a young girl would dream of her future husband provided that she followed the prescribed ritual on St Agnes Eve: going to bed without supper, and without looking behind her, she had to undress and sleep naked, facing heavenward, and with her hands, palm's upwards, underneath the pillow. In this posture, and in a dream, her future husband would appear, kiss her, and they would partake of a feast. In the poem, and while festivities are going on elsewhere in the castle, Madeline follows the prescribed ritual, unaware that the man she loves, Porphyro, has managed to get in to the castle and persuade the elderly dame Angela, to hide him in a cupboard in Madeline's room. From there he watches her undress, and burning with desire, kneels by the bed while she sleeps. Waking, (but still thinking that she is dreaming), and seeing Porphyro, Madeline takes him in to bed. When the reality becomes apparent, however, and especially as Porphyro comes from a rival warring family, the lovers have no choice but, to make their escape:
The Eve of St Agnes
I
St Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seemed taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.
II
His prayer he saith, the patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel isle by slow degrees:
The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails;
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
III
Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue
Fluttered to tears, this ag
èd man and poor;
But no - already had his deathbell rung:
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St Agnes' Eve.
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.
IV
That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
And so it chanced, for many a door was wide,
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide:
The level chambers, ready with their pride,
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests,
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.
V
At length burst in the argent revelry,
silver: relating to heraldry
With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting faerily
The brain, new-stuffed, in youth, with triumphs gay
Of old romance. These let us wish away,
And turn, sole-thoughted, to our Lady there,
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
On love, and winged St Agnus' saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.
VI
They told her how, upon St Agnes' Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honeyed middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily-white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.
VII
Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline;
The music, yearning like a God in pain,
She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
Pass by - she heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tip-toe, amorous cavalier,
And back retired - not cooled by high disdain,
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere.
She sighed for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.
VIII
She danced along with vague, regardless eyes,
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
The hallowed hour was near at hand: she sighs
Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate and scorn,
Hoodweinked with fiery fancy - all amort,
Save to St Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.
IX
So, purposing each moment to retire,
She lingered still. Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Butressed from moonlight, stands he, and implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss - in sooth such things have been.
X
He ventures in - let no buzzed whisper tell,
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous citadel:
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.
XI
Ah, happy chance! the ag
èd creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
And grasped his fingers in her palsied hand,
Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place:
go quickly
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!
XII
"Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand -
He had a fever late, and in the fit
He curs
èd thee and thine, both house and land:
Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
More tame for his grey hairs - Alas me! flit!
Flit like a ghost away." "Ah, gossip dear,
We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
And tell me how - " "Good Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."
XIII
He followed through a lonely arch
èd way,
Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
And as she muttered, "Well-a--well-a-day!"
He found him in a little moonlight room,
Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb.
"Now tell me where is Madeline," said he,
"O tell me, Angela by the holy loom
Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St Agnes' wool are weaving pioulsy."
XIV
"St Agnes? Ah! it is St Agnes' Eve -
Yet men will murder upon holy days:
Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve,
And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
To venture so: it fills me with amaze
To see thee, Porphyro!-St Agnes' Eve!
God's help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
This very night. Good angels her deceive!
But let me laugh awhile. I've mickle time to grieve."
a long time
XV
Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
Like puzzled urchins on an ag
èd crone
Who keepeth closed a wondrous riddle-book,
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.
XVI
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow, and in his pain
èd heart
Made purple riot; then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
"A cruel man and impious thou art:
Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
Alone with her good angels, far apart
From wicked men like thee. Go, go! - I dream
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem."
XVII
"I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,"
Quoth Porphyro "O may I ne'er find grace
When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
Good Angela, believe me by these tears,
Or I will, even in a moment's space,
Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears,
And beard them, though they be more fanged than wolves and bears."
XVIII
"Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
Were never missed." - Thus plaining, doth she bring
A gentler speech from burning Porphyro,
So woeful, and of such deep sorrowing,
That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.
XIX
Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy
That he might see her beauty unespied,
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
While legioned faeries paced the coverlet,
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.
Never on such a night have lovers met,
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.
XX
"It shall be as thou wishest," said the Dame:
"All cates and dainties shall be stor
èd there
Quickly on this feast-night; by the tambour frame
Her own lute thou wilt see. No time to spare,
For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
The while. Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead."
XXI
So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
The lover's endless minutes slowly passed;
The dame returned, and whispered in his ear
To follow her; with ag
èd eyes aghast
From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
The maiden's chamber, silken, hushed, and chaste;
Where Porphyro took covert, pleased amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.
shivering or fever
XXII
Her faltering hand upon the balustrade,
Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
When Madeline, St Agnes' charm
èd maid,
Rose, like a missioned spirit, unaware:
With silver taper's light, and pious care,
She turned, and down the aged gossip led
To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed -
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled.
XXIII
Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She closed the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide -
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifl
èd, in her dell.
XXIV
A casement high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblasonings,
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings.
XXV
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed,
Save wings, for Heaven - Porphyro grew faint;
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
XXVI
Anon his heart revives; her vespers done,
Of all its wreath
èd pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warm
èd jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.
XXVII
Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplexed she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed
Her sooth
èd limbs, and soul fatigued away -
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully havened both from joy and pain;
Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
XXVIII
Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced,
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
And listened to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumbrous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
And breathed himself: then from the closet crept,
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
And over the hushed carpet, silent, stepped,
And 'tween the curtains peeped, where, lo! - how fast she slept.
XXIX
Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon
Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half anguished, threw thereon
A cloth of woven crimson, gold and jet -
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarinet,
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone;
The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.
XXX
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
In blanch
èd linen, smooth, and lavendered,
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd,
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferred
a large merchant ship
From Fez, and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
XXXI
These delicates he heaped with glowing hand
On golden dishes and in baskets bright
Of wreath
èd silver, sumptuous they stand
In the retir
èd quiet of the night,
Filling the chilly room with perfume light.
"And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:
Open thine eyes, for meek St Agnes' sake,
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache."
XXXII
Thus whispering, his warm, unnerv
èd arm
Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream
By the dusk curtains - 'twas a midnight charm
Impossible to melt as iced stream:
The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies.
It seems he never, never could redeem
From such a steadfast spell his lady's eyes;
So mused awhile, entoiled in woof
èd phantasies.
XXXIII
Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,
Tumultuous, and, in chords that tenderest be,
He played an ancient ditty, long since mute,
In Proven
çe called, "La Belle dame sans mercy",
Close to her ear touching the melody -
Wherewith disturbed, she uttered a soft moan:
He ceased - she panted quick - and suddenly
Her blue affray
èd eyes wide open shone.
Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.
XXXIV
Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,
Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep -
There was a painful change, that nigh expelled
The blisses of her dream so pure and deep.
At which fair Madeline began to weep,
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh,
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;
Who knelt, with join
èd hands and piteous eye,
Fearing to move or speak, she looked so dreamingly.
XXXV
"Ah, Porphyro" said she, "but even now
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tuneable with every sweetest vow,
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:
How changed thou art! How pallid, chill, and drear!
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!
O leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go."
XXXVI
Beyond a mortal man impassioned far
At these voluptuous accents, he arose,
Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star
Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose;
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odour with the violet -
Solution sweet. Meantime the frost-wind blows
Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet
Against the window-panes; St Agnes' moon hath set.
XXXVII
'Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet
"This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!"
'Tis dark: the ic
èd gusts still rave and beat.
"No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine. -
Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,
Though thou forsakest a deceiv
èd thing -
A dove forlorn and lost with sick unprun
èd wing."
XXXVIII
"My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!
Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blessed?
Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and verneil dyed?
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest
After so many hours of toil and quest,
A famished pilgrim - saved by miracle.
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest
Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel
XXXIX
"Hark! 'tis an elfin-storm from faery land,
Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:
Arise - arise! the morning is at hand.
The bloated wassaillers will never heed -
Let us away, my love, with happy speed -
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,
Drowned all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead;
Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,
For oe'er the southern moors I have a home for thee."
XL
She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears -
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,
Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.
XLI
They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;
Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flaggon by his side:
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns.
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide -
The chains lie silent on the footworn stones -
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.
XLII
And they are gone - ay, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitched, with meagre face-deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.
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In her introductory notes to, Ode to a Nightingale, written in May 1819, Miriam Allott quotes from Charles Armitage Brown's account of the circumstance in which this poem was composed:
"...In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest in my house. Keats felt a continual and tranquil joy in her song; and one morning he took a chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under a plum-tree where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On enquiry, I found these scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song of the nightingale. This writing was not well legible; and it was difficult to arrange the stanzas on so many scraps. With his assistance I succeeded, and this was his "Ode to a Nightingale," a poem which has been the delight of everyone."
Having quoted Brown, Marian Allott casts some doubt on the accuracy of his recollection, before going on to put the poem in context. The nightingale, she tells us, was "a stock subject for celebration by pre-Romantic and Romantic poets," but that in this instance, "Keats treatment of the subject is individual." The poem, she explains, "traces the inception, nature and decline of the creative mood, and expresses Keats's attempt to understand his feelings about the contrast between the ideal and actual and the close association of pain with pleasure..."
Ode to a Nightingale
I
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I have drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness -
That thou, light-wing
èd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
II
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delv
èd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Proven
çal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stain
èd mouth,
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim -
III
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
IV
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards.
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
V
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild -
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's oldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy-wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
VI
Darkling I listen, and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death.
Called him soft names in many a mus
èd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
To thy high requiem become a sod.
VII
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
VIII
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled in that music - Do I wake or sleep?
___________
Now when John Keats sat down to write this next poem, To Autumn, in September 1819, he could not have imagined that the opening statement would become one of the most hackneyed lines of English poetry ever, a state of affairs that leaves me, with the uncomfortable feeling, that as a consequence, this poem has been trivialised in the mind of the general public. From my point of view, in terms of mood and content, it is a masterpiece, in which Keats stopped, just short, of making the experience, for the reader, three dimensional:
I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run:
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er brimmed their clammy cells.
II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowned with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden hand across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too -
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn,
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
_______________
© Cormac McCloskey
The poems used in this blog are taken from
John Keats: The Complete Poems
Edited by John Barnard
The Folio Society, London 2001
by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd
Letters of John Keats
Editor, Robert Gittings
Oxford University Press (1990)
ISBN 0-19-281081-2
Keats: The Complete Poems
Editor, Miriam Allott
Longman (1970)
ISBN 0-582-48457-X
