but we see them under a cloud in prospect.' So we see Adam fair indeed, and tall,' under a plantain,' and so we see Satan'disfigured' 'on the Assyrian mount.' The copy of "Spenser" which Keats had in daily use, contains the following stanza, inserted at the close of Canto II. Book v. His sympathies were very much on the side of the revolutionary “Gyant,” who "undertook for to repair" the "realms and nations run awry," and to suppress subject to their law," 66 66 tyrants that make men and lordings curbe that commons over-aw," while he grudged the legitimate victory, as he rejected the conservative philosophy, of the "righteous Artegall " and his comrade, the fierce defender of privilege and order. And he expressed, in this ex post facto prophecy, his conviction of the ultimate triumph of freedom and equality by the power of transmitted knowledge. "In after-time, a sage of mickle lore When, meeting Artegall and Talus grim, The one he struck stone-blind, the other's eyes wox dim." The "Literary Remains" will contain many sonnets and songs, written during these months, in the intervals of more complete compositions; but the following pieces are so fragmentary as more becomingly to take their place in the narrative of the author's life, than to show as substantive productions. Yet it is, perhaps, just in verses like these that the individual character pronounces itself most distinctly, and confers a general interest which more care of art at once elevates and diminishes. The occasional verses of a great poet are records, as it were, of his poetical tabletalk, remembrances of his daily self and its intellectual companionship, more delightful from what they recall, than for what they are more interesting for what they suggest, than for what they were ever meant to be. FRAGMENT. Where's the Poet? show him! show him! Muses nine! that I may know him! 'Tis the man who with a man Is an equal, be he King, Or poorest of the beggar-clan, A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato ; All its instincts; he hath heard The Lion's roaring, and can tell Comes articulate and presseth On his ear like mother-tongue. MODERN LOVE. And what is love? It is a doll dress'd up And Anthony resides in Brunswick Square. Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the world, Should be more common than the growth of weeds. That ye may love in spite of beaver hats. FRAGMENT OF THE "CASTLE BUILDER." * * * To-night I'll have my friar,-let me think * To see what else the moon alone can show; While the night-breeze doth softly let us know A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there, A skull upon a mat of roses lying, Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying; My table-coverlits of Jason's fleece And black Numidian sheep wool should be wrought, Gold, black, and heavy from the Lama brought. My ebon sofas should delicious be With down from Leda's cygnet progeny. My pictures all Salvator's, save a few Of Titian's portraiture, and one, though new, Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow, I love to mark sad faces in fair weather; Meadows sweet where flames are under, And a giggle at a wonder; Visage sage at pantomime; Funeral, and steeple-chime; Infant playing with a skull; Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull; Nightshade with the woodbine kissing; Serpents in red roses hissing; Cleopatra regal-dress'd With the aspic at her breast; Both together, sane and mad; |