ΤΟ What can I do to drive away Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen, When every fair one that I saw was fair, When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things, And ever ready was to take her course Unintellectual, yet divine to me ; Divine, I say!-What sea-bird o'er the sea Winging along where the great water throes? How shall I do To get anew Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more Above, above The reach of fluttering Love, And make him cower lowly while I soar ? Shall I gulp wine? No, that is vulgarism, A heresy and schism, Foisted into the canon law of love ; No, wine is only sweet to happy men ; More dismal cares Seize on me unawares, Where shall I learn to get my peace again? That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour, Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods, Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind, O, for some sunny spell To dissipate the shadows of this hell! Say they are gone,—with the new dawning light Steps forth my lady bright! O, let me once more rest My soul upon that dazzling breast! Let once again these aching arms be placed, The tender gaolers of thy waist! And let me feel that warm breath here and there To spread a rapture in my very hair,— O, the sweetness of the pain! Give me those lips again! Enough! Enough! it is enough for me MY DEAR TAYLOR, WENTWORTH PLACE, Hampstead, 17th Nov. [1819.] I have come to a determination not to publish anything I have now ready written; but, for all that, to publish a poem before long, and that I hope to make a fine one. As the marvellous is the most enticing, and the surest guarantee of harmonious numbers, I have been endeavouring to persuade myself to untether Fancy, and to let her manage for herself. I and myself cannot agree about this at all. Wonders are no wonders to me. I am more at home amongst men and women. I would rather read Chaucer than Ariosto. The little dramatic skill I may as yet have, however badly it might shew in a drama, would, I think, be sufficient for a poem. I wish to diffuse the colouring of St. Agnes' Eve throughout a poem in which character and sentiment would be the figures to such drapery. Two or three such poems, if God should spare me, written in the course of the next six years, would be a famous Gradus ad Parnassum altissimum. I mean they would nerve me up to the writing of a few fine plays -my greatest ambition, when I do feel ambitious. I am sorry to say that is very seldom. The subject we have once or twice talked of appears a promising one -the Earl of Leicester's history. I am this morning reading Holingshed's "Elizabeth." Elizabeth." You had some books awhile ago, you promised to send me, illustrative of my subject. If you can lay hold of them, or any other which may be serviceable to me, I know you will encourage my low-spirited muse by sending them, or rather by letting me know where our errand-cart man shall call with my little box. I will endeavour to set myself selfishly at work on this poem that is to be. Your sincere friend, JOHN KEATS. About this time he wrote this to his brother George : I "From the time you left us our friends say I have altered so completely I am not the same person. dare say you have altered also. Mine is not the same hand I clenched at Hammond.* We are like the relic garments of a saint, the same and not the same; for the careful monks patch it and patch it till there is not a thread of the original in it, and still they show it for St. Anthony's shirt. This is the reason why men who have been bosom-friends for a number of years afterwards meet coldly, neither of them know why. Some think I have lost that poetic fire and ardour they say I once had. The fact is, I perhaps have, but instead of that I hope I shall substitute a more thoughtful and quiet power. I am more contented to read and think, but seldom haunted with ambitious thoughts. I am scarcely content to write the best verse from the fever they leave behind. I want to compose without this fever; I hope I shall one day. * The surgeon to whom he was apprenticed. "You cannot imagine how well I can live alone. I told the servant to-day I was not at home to any one that called. I am not sure how I should endure loneliness and bad weather at the same time. It is beautiful weather now. I walk for an hour every day before dinner. My dear sister, I have all the "Examiners" ready for you. I will pack them up when the business with Mr. Abbey comes to a conclusion. I have dealt out your best wishes like a pack of cards, but, being always given to cheat, I have turned up ace. You see I am making game of you. I see you are not happy in America. As for pun-making, I wish it were as profitable as pin-making. There is but little business of that sort going on now. We struck for wages like the Manchester weavers, but to no purpose, for we are all out of employ. I am more lucky than some, you see, as I have an opportunity of exporting a pun, getting into a little foreign trade, which is a comfortable thing. You have heard of Hook the farce-writer. Horace Smith was asked if he knew him. Oh yes,' says he, Hook and I are very intimate.' Brown has been taking French lessons at the cheap rate of two-and-sixpence a page, and Reynolds observed, 'Gad, the man sells his lessons so cheap, he must have stolen them.' I wish you could get change for a pun in silver |