Thou shouldst, my love, by some unlook'dfor change

Be spiritualized. Peona, we shall range These forests, and to thee they safe shall be As was thy cradle; hither shalt thou flee To meet us many a time.' Next Cynthia bright

Peona kiss'd, and bless'd with fair good night:

Her brother kiss'd her too, and knelt adown Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon. 999 She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, Before three swiftest kisses he had told, They vanish'd far away!- Peona went Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment.

The most pregnant year of Keats's genius was that which dates roughly from the spring of 1818 to the spring of 1819, as one may readily see who scans the titles of the poems included in this division. The group here given, beginning with Isabella

ISABELLA, OR THE POT OF BASIL

A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO

Keats and Reynolds projected a volume of metrical tales translated from or based on Boccaccio. Apparently, Keats began Isabella, which was to be one of his contributions, some time before he went to Teignmouth, where he finished Endymion. At any rate, from that place April 27, 1818, he wrote to Reynolds, who was then quite ill: 'I have written for my folio Shakespeare, in which there are the first few stanzas of my Pot of Basil. I have the rest here finished, and will copy the whole out fairly shortly, and George will bring it you The compliment is paid by us to Boccace, whether we publish or no: so there is content in this world- mine is short -you must be deliberate about yours; you must not think of it till many months after you are quite well: then put your passion to it, and I shall be bound up with you in the shadows of Mind, as we are in our matters of human life.' Keats did not wait for Reynolds, but published his Isabella in the volume entitled Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems issued in the summer of 1820.

I

FAIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel!

Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell

Without some stir of heart, some malady;

and closing with Lamia, includes, besides those poems and The Eve of St. Agnes, the great Odes, Fancy, and some of the notable Sonnets. The division, besides being a convenient one, seems almost logical and not merely chronological.

They could not sit at meals but feel how well

It soothed each to be the other by; They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep

But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II

With every morn their love grew tenderer,

With every eve deeper and tenderer still; He might not in house, field, or garden stir,

But her full shape would all his seeing fill;

And his continual voice was pleasanter

To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; Her lute-string gave an echo of his name, She spoilt her half-done broidery with the

same.

III

He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,

Before the door had given her to his

eyes;

And from her chamber-window he would catch

Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; And constant as her vespers would he watch,

Because her face was turn'd to the same

skies;

And with sick longing all the night out

wear,

To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk, Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.

Ah! better had it been for ever so,
Than idle ears should pleasure in their

woe.

XII

XV

For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, And went all naked to the hungry shark; For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death

The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark

aloud,