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diff --git a/30451-0.txt b/30451-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1470426 --- /dev/null +++ b/30451-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,838 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30451 *** + +DAYS WITH THE GREAT POETS + + +KEATS + + + [Illustration] + [_Painting by W. J. Neatby._ LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. + + 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.] + + + + +A DAY WITH KEATS + +BY + +MAY BYRON + + + + +HODDER & STOUGHTON LTD., +PUBLISHERS LONDON + + + + +_Uniform with this Volume_ + +DAYS WITH THE POETS +BROWNING +BURNS +KEATS +LONGFELLOW +SHAKESPEARE +TENNYSON + +DAYS WITH THE COMPOSERS +BEETHOVEN +CHOPIN +GOUNOD +MENDELSSOHN +TSCHAIKOVSKY +WAGNER + + +_Made and Printed in Great Britain for Hodder & Stoughton, Limited, +by C. Tinling & Co., Ltd., Liverpool, London and Prescot._ + + + + +A DAY WITH KEATS + + +About eight o'clock one morning in early summer, a young man may be +seen sauntering to and fro in the garden of Wentworth Place, Hampstead. +Wentworth Place consists of two houses only; in the first, John Keats is +established along with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. The second is +inhabited by a Mrs. Brawne and her family. They are wooden houses, with +festooning draperies of foliage: and the clean countrified air of +Hampstead comes with sweet freshness through the gardens, and fills the +young man with ecstatic delight. He gazes around him, with his weak dark +eyes, upon the sky, the flowers, the various minutiæ of nature which +mean so much to him: and although he has severely tried a never robust +physique by sitting up half the night in study, a new exhilaration now +throbs through his veins. For, in his own words, he loves the principle +of beauty in all things: and he repeats to himself, as he loiters up and +down in the sunshine, the lines into which he has crystallized, for all +time, sensations similar to those of the present:-- + + A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness; but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. + Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing + A flowery band to bind us to the earth, + Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth + Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, + Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways + Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, + Some shape of beauty moves away the pall + From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, + Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon + For simple sheep; and such are daffodils + With the green world they live in; and clear rills + That for themselves a cooling covert make + 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, + Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: + And such too is the grandeur of the dooms + We have imagined for the mighty dead; + All lovely tales that we have heard or read: + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. + Nor do we merely feel these essences + For one short hour; no, even as the trees + That whisper round a temple become soon + Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, + The passion poesy, glories infinite, + Haunt us till they become a cheering light + Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, + That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, + They alway must be with us, or we die. + _Endymion._ + +Yet John Keats is in some respects out of keeping with the magnificent +phraseology of which he is the mouthpiece. "Little Keats," as his fellow +medical students termed him, is a small, undersized man, not over five feet +high--the shoulders too broad, the legs too spare--"death in his hand," +as Coleridge said, the slack moist hand of the incipient consumptive. +The only "thing of beauty" about him is his face. "It is a face," to +quote his friend Leigh Hunt, "in which energy and sensibility" (i.e., +sensitiveness) "are remarkably mixed up--an eager power, wrecked and +made impatient by ill-health. Every feature at once strongly cut and +delicately alive." There is that femininity in the cast of his features, +which Coleridge classed as an attribute of true genius. His beautiful +brown hair falls loosely over those eyes, large, dark, glowing, which +appeal to all observers by their mystical illumination of rapture--eyes +which seem as though they had been dwelling on some glorious sight--which +have, as Haydon said, "an inward look perfectly divine, like a Delphian +priestess who saw visions." + +And he _is_ seeing visions all the while. Some chance sight or sound has +wrapt him away from the young greenness of the May morning, and plunged +him deep into the opulent colour of September. His prophetic eye sees +all the apple-buds as golden orbs of fruit, and the swallows, that now +build beneath the eaves, making ready for their departure. And these +future splendours shape themselves into lines as richly coloured. + + [Illustration] + + [_Painting by W. J. Neatby._ AUTUMN. + + 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 ...] + + * * * * * + + 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-eaves run; + To bend with apples the moss'd 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. + + 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-reap'd furrow sound asleep, + Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook + Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; + And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep + Steady thy laden head across a brook; + Or by a cider-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. + _Autumn._ + +The voice of Charles Brown at the open window, hailing him cheerily, +breaks the spell; Keats goes in, and they sit down together to a simple +breakfast-table, and Brown "quizzes" Keats, as the current phrase goes, +on his inveterate abstractedness. The young man, with his sweet and +merry laugh, defends himself by producing the result of his last-night's +meditations, in praise of the selfsame wandering fancy. + + Ever let the Fancy roam, + Pleasure never is at home: + At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, + Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; + Then let wingèd Fancy wander + Through the thought still spread beyond her: + Open wide the mind's cage door, + She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. + O, sweet Fancy! let her loose; + Summer's joys are spoilt by use, + And the enjoying of the Spring + Fades as does its blossoming: + Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, + Blushing through the mist and dew, + Cloys with tasting: What do then? + Sit thee by the ingle, when + The sear faggot blazes bright, + Spirit of a winter's night; + When the soundless earth is muffled, + And the caked snow is shuffled + From the ploughboy's heavy shoon.... + Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her! + She has vassals to attend her: + She will bring, in spite of frost, + Beauties that the earth hath lost; + She will bring thee, all together, + All delights of summer weather; + All the buds and bells of May, + From dewy sward or thorny spray; + All the heapèd Autumn's wealth, + With a still, mysterious stealth: + She will mix these pleasures up, + Like three fit wines in a cup, + And thou shalt quaff it.... + _Fancy._ + +Breakfast over, the business of the day begins: and that, with Keats, is +poetry, and all that can foster poetic stimulus. He takes no real heed +of anything else. A devoted son and brother, one ready to sacrifice +himself and his slender resources to the uttermost farthing for his +mother, brothers, sister and friends--yet he has no vital interest in +other folks' affairs, nor in current events, nor in ordinary social +topics. Other people's poetry does not appeal to him, except that of +Shakespeare, and of Homer--whom he does not know in the original, but +who, through the poor medium of translation, has filled his soul with +Grecian fantasies. + + Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, + And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; + Round many western islands have I been + Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. + Oft of one wide expanse had I been told + That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: + Yet did I never breathe its pure serene + Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: + Then felt I like some watcher of the skies + When a new planet swims into his ken; + Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes + He stared at the Pacific--and all his men + Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- + Silent upon a peak in Darien. + _Sonnet._ + +This is what he wrote after sitting up one night till daybreak with his +friend Cowden Clarke, shouting with delight over the vistas newly +revealed to him. And from that time on, he has luxuriated in dreams of +classic beauty, warmed to new life by the sorcery of Romance. Immortal +shapes arise upon him from the "infinite azure of the past:" and he sees +how + + Deep in the shady sadness of a vale + Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, + Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, + Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, + Still as the silence round about his lair; + Forest on forest hung about his head + Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, + Not so much life as on a summer's day + Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, + But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. + A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more + By reason of his fallen divinity + Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds + Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips. + _Hyperion._ + +He is studying French, Latin, and especially Italian--all with a view of +furthering his poetic ability: though no great reader, he has soaked +himself in the atmosphere of old Italian tales, and the very spirit of +mediæval Florence breathes from the story, borrowed from Boccaccio, "an +echo in the north-wind sung," which narrates how the hapless Isabelle +bid away the head of her murdered lover. + + [Illustration] + + [_Painting by W. J. Neatby._ ISABELLA. + + And she forgot the stars, the moon, the sun, + And she forgot the blue above the trees, + And she forgot the dells where waters run, + And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze; + She had no knowledge when the day was done, + And the new moon she saw not: but in peace + Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, + And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.] + + * * * * * + + Then in a silken scarf,--sweet with the dews + Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby, + And divine liquids come with odorous ooze + Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,-- + She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose + A garden pot, wherein she laid it by, + And covered it with mould, and o'er it set + Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet. + And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun, + And she forgot the blue above the trees, + And she forgot the dells where waters run, + And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze; + She had no knowledge when the day was done, + And the new moon she saw not: but in peace + Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, + And moisten'd it with tears unto the core. + _Isabella._ + +Keats has brought himself with difficulty, however, to the perusal of +modern poets. His boyish enthusiasm for Leigh Hunt's work has long since +evaporated: and after reading Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_, all he has +found to say is, "Poor Shelley, I think he has his quota of good +qualities!" But, for the rest, he is not attracted to any kind of +knowledge which cannot be "made applicable and subservient to the +purposes of poetry,"--his own poetry. For his one desire is to win an +immortal name--and he has begun life "full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, +and ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at once beneath his pen. +Poor fellow!" (Haydon's diary). + +But "men of genius," Keats himself has said, "are as great as certain +ethereal chemicals, operating in a mass of created matter: but they have +not any determined character." That indefiniteness of literary aim--that +want of willpower, without which genius is a curse, which have hampered +the young man all along--are now still further emphasised by the +restlessness of a passionate lover. John Keats cannot stay indoors this +fine May morning, "fitting himself for verses fit to live," when the +girl who is to him the incarnation of all poetry is visible in the +next-door garden. He throws down his pen and hurries out to join her. + +Contemporary portraits of Fanny Brawne have not succeeded in representing +her as beautiful: and at first sight Keats has complained, that, although +she "manages to make her hair look well," she "wants sentiment in every +feature." Propinquity, however, has achieved the usual result; and now +the young poet believes his inamorata to be the very apotheosis of +loveliness: he is never weary of adoring her + + Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, + Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone, + Bright eyes, accomplished shape! + +If the truth be told, Fanny Brawne is a fairly good-looking young woman, +blue-eyed and long-nosed, her hair arranged with curls and ribbons over +her brow: she has a curious but striking resemblance to the draped +figure in Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love": and for the rest, she is +by no means poetic or sentimental, but a voluminous reader, whose strong +point is an extraordinary knowledge of the history of costume. She +accepts the homage of Keats, much as she accepts the fact of their tacit +betrothal, and the fact that her mother disapproves of it--without +taking it too seriously in any sense. And now, though not particularly +keen on open-air enjoyment, she accepts his daily suggestion of a walk +with her; and they go out into the beautiful meadows which were part of +Hampstead a hundred years ago. + +Keats is in his glory in the fields. Always, the humming of a bee, the +sight of a flower, the glitter of the sun, have "seemed to make his +nature tremble: then his eyes flashed, his cheek glowed, his mouth +quivered." Peculiarly sensitive, as he is, to external influences, his +chief delight is to "think of green fields ... I muse with the greatest +affection on every flower I have known from my infancy." The man who +is so soon to "feel the daisies growing over him," takes one of his +intensest pleasures in watching the growth of flowers; and now, as an +exquisite music, "notes that pierce and pierce," descends through the +young green oak-leaves, the poet seizes this golden moment of the May +world and transmutes it into song. + + My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains + My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, + Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains + One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: + 'Tis not with envy of thy happy lot, + But being too happy in thine happiness,-- + That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, + In some melodious plot + Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, + Singest of summer in full-throated ease. + + O, for a draught of vintage, that hath been + Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth, + Tasting of Flora and the country-green, + Dance, and Provençal 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-stainèd mouth; + That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, + And with thee fade away into the forest dim: + + 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 spectre-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 tomorrow.... + + 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; + That same that oft-times hath + Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. + + 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 is that music:--do I wake or sleep? + _Ode to a Nightingale._ + + [Illustration] + + [_Painting by W. J. Neatby._ THE NIGHTINGALE. + + Thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, + In some melodious plot + Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, + Singest of summer in full-throated ease.] + +The poet is recalled from these rapturous flights to the fugitive +sweetness of the present: he is wandering in May meadows, young and +impetuous, on fire with hopes, and his heart's beloved beside him. It is +almost too good to be true. "I have never known any unalloyed happiness +for many days together," he tells Fanny; "the death or sickness of +someone has always spoilt my home. I almost wish we were butterflies, +and lived but three summer days--three such days with you I could fill +with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain." He talks +to her earnestly of his dreams, his aspirations, his ambitions: and then +the sordid facts of every-day life begin to cast a blighting shadow over +his effulgent hopes. What has he, indeed, to offer, worth her taking? A +young man of twenty-three, ex-dresser at a hospital, who has abandoned +his surgical career without adopting any other: with slender resources, +and no occupation beyond that of producing verses which are held up to +absolute derision by the great reviews. "I would willingly have recourse +to other means," he tells her again, as he has told his friend Dilke, "I +cannot: I am fit for nothing else but literature." He talks of taking up +journalism--but in his heart he feels unfit for any regular profession, +by reason both of physical weakness and a certain lack of system in mental +work. The future becomes blackly, blankly overcast; the _res augusta +domi_ descend like a curtain between the sublimity of Keats and the calm +commonsense of Fanny. They turn homewards in silence, the poet revolving +melancholy musings. + + But when the melancholy fit shall fall + Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, + That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, + And hides the green hill in an April shroud; + Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, + Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, + Or on the wealth of globèd peonies; + Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, + Emprison her soft hand, and let rave, + And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. + + She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung. + _Ode to Melancholy._ + +Fanny Brawne enters her mother's house, and John Keats goes into his +room and sits down, brooding, brooding. "O," he says, "that something +fortunate had ever happened to me or my brothers! Then I might hope--but +despair is forced upon me as a habit." And he is only too well aware, +that although he is naturally "the very soul of courage and manliness," +this habit of despair is growing upon him, and eating his energy away. A +wintry chill settles down upon the May-time, and his misery finds vent +in lovely lines-- + + In a drear-nighted December, + Too happy, happy tree, + Thy branches ne'er remember + Their green felicity: + The north cannot undo them, + With a sleety whistle through them; + Nor frozen thawings glue them + From budding at the prime. + + In a drear-nighted December, + Too happy, happy brook, + Thy bubblings ne'er remember + Apollo's summer look; + But with a sweet forgetting, + They stay their crystal fretting, + Never, never petting + About the frozen time. + + Ah! would 'twere so with many + A gentle girl and boy! + But were there ever any + Writh'd not at passed joy? + To know the change and feel it, + When there is none to heal it, + Nor numbed sense to steal it, + Was never said in rhyme. + + [Illustration] + + [_Painting by W. J. Neatby._ ENDYMION. + + As she spake, into her face there came + Light, as reflected from a silver flame, + ... In her eyes a brighter day + Dawn'd blue and full of love.] + +Yet Keats is young, and youth means buoyancy. With an effort--increasingly +difficult--he is able to shake off this sombre fit for awhile; and he +makes use of the simplest means to that end. "Whenever I feel vapourish," +he has said, "I rouse myself, wash, and put on a clean shirt; brush my +hair and clothes, tie my shoe-strings neatly, and in fact adonize as if +I were going out: then, all clean and comfortable, I sit down to write." +These very prosaic methods adopted, he abandons himself to the full +flood of inspiration, and lets his mind suffuse itself in antique glory. +As Endymion, he receives the divine commands of the passionately bright +Moon-Lady, as she stoops at last to bless him. + + And as she spake, into her face there came + Light, as reflected from a silver flame: + Her long black hair swelled ample, in display + Full golden: in her eyes a brighter day + Dawn'd blue and full of love. + _Endymion._ + +Or, as Lycius, he succumbs to the serpentine grace of Lamia; or as +Porphyro, hidden in the silence, watches Madeline at prayer. + + A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, + All garlanded with carven imageries + 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-damask'd wings; + And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, + And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, + A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. + + 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 prest, + And on her silver cross soft amethyst, + And on her hair a glory, like a saint: + She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, + Save wings, for heaven: Porphyro grew faint: + She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. + _Eve of St. Agnes._ + +But the inspiration does not well up to-day: its flow is frustrated, +in view of the mountainous difficulties which hedge him in. Ill-health, +stinted means, hopeless love, and continual lack of success--these are +calculated to give the bravest pause. And presently Keats, snatching a +few hurried mouthfuls of lunch, is off to the studio of his friend, the +painter Haydon--the one man among all his acquaintance who is capable of +really understanding him. He sits down morbid and silent in the painting +room: for a while nothing will evoke a word from him, good or bad. But +his keen interest in matters of art, and the entry of various friends one +by one--Wentworth Dilke, Hamilton Reynolds, Bailey and Leigh Hunt--soon +arouse him to animated conversation. Keats is shy and ill at ease in +women's society: but a "delightful combination of earnestness and +pleasantry distinguishes his intercourse with men." He says fine things +finely, jokes with ready humour, and at the mention of any oppression or +wrong rises "into grave manliness at once, seeming like a tall man." +No wonder that his society is much sought after, and himself greatly +beloved by these congenial spirits; no wonder that here, at least, he +meets with that appreciation of which elsewhere his genius has been +starved. In this young fellow of twenty-three, who unites winning, +affectionate ways, and habitual gentleness of manner, with the loftiest +and most nobly-worded ideals, few would discover that imaginary "Johnny +Keats, the apothecary's assistant," upon whom the _Blackwood_ reviewer +had lavished such vials of vituperation. He is here openly acknowledged +as one of the "bards of passion and of mirth," and his poems are each +accepted, as + + Not a senseless, tranced thing, + But divine melodies of truth, + Philosophic numbers smooth, + Tales and golden histories + Of heaven and its mysteries.... + +"No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression +quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of loveliness." +(Matthew Arnold). But only these few friends of his are able to +recognise that perfection. Outside their charmed circle, lies an +obstinately unappreciative world. + +The afternoon wears on, and the friends disperse. Keats, returning to +Wentworth Place flushed with hectic exhilaration, finds a veritable +douche of cold water awaiting him, in the shape of a letter from his +publishers. They refer to his unlucky first volume of poems, brought out +in 1817. "By far the greater number of persons who have purchased it from +us," they say, "have found fault with it in such plain terms, that we +have in many cases offered to take the book back, rather than be annoyed +with the ridicule which has time after time been showered upon it. In +fact, it was only on Sunday last that we were under the mortification of +having our own opinion of its merits flatly contradicted by a gentleman +who told us that he considered it 'no better than a take-in.'" + +For a few minutes the pendulum swings back to despair. A man whose whole +business in life is the creation of the best work, who "never wrote a +line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought," who believes +that after his death he will be among the English poets, and that if he +only has time now, he will make himself remembered--that such a one +should be merely the butt and laughing-stock of his readers! It is +an unendurable position. Not that Keats attaches undue importance to +popular applause. "Praise or blame," he says, "has but a momentary +effect upon the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a +severe critic on his own works.... In _Endymion_ I leaped headlong into +the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings, +the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore +and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure: for +I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest." + +But what will Fanny think of such a letter? He falls to miserable +meditation over the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, and the +constant erection of new obstacles in the course of his luckless love. +And of Fanny's love he always has had a smouldering doubt: yet he +remains her vassal, from the first, as he has told her--irrevocably her +slave. He conceives himself an outcast on the wintry hillside, exiled +from all his heart's desires. + + Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, + Alone and palely loitering? + The sedge is wither'd from the lake, + And no birds sing. + + Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight, + So haggard and so woe-begone? + The squirrel's granary is full, + And the harvest's done. + + I see a lily on thy brow, + With anguish moist and fever dew; + And on thy cheek a fading rose + Fast withereth too. + + 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. + + I set her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long; + And sideways would she lean, and sing + A faery's song. + + I made a garland for her head, + And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; + She look'd at me and she did love, + And made sweet moan. + + She found me roots of relish sweet, + And honey wild, and manna dew; + And sure in language strange she said, + I love thee true. + + She took me to her elfin grot, + And there she gaz'd and sighed deep, + And there I shut her wild sad eyes-- + So kiss'd to sleep. + + And there we slumber'd on the moss, + And there I dream'd, ah woe betide, + The latest dream I ever dream'd + On the cold hill side. + + I saw pale kings, and princes too, + Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; + Who cried--"La belle Dame sans merci + Hath thee in thrall!" + + I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam + With horrid warning gaped wide, + And I awoke, and found me here + On the cold hill side. + + And this is why I sojourn here + Alone and palely loitering, + Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, + And no birds sing. + _La Belle Dame sans merci._ + +And now he hears the voice of his Belle Dame ringing light across the +garden; while he sits here, a prey to every distress, she is gaily +gossiping with her next-door neighbour Brown. At once the unhappy Keats +is tormented by a thousand jealous fears. Fanny is transferring her +affection to Brown: of that he is quite certain. He rushes out: his +black looks banish the much-amused Brown, and very nearly produce an +immediate rupture between Fanny and himself. But after a few bitter +words, he permits himself to be reassured--or is it cajoled?--and tells +her, "I must confess that I love you the more, in that I believe you +have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else." The poor boy, from +a worldly point of view, has "nothing else" to offer. + +The lovers' quarrel is over for the nonce. Visitors begin to drop in for +the evening; there is music and singing in Brown's little drawing room. +Keats is very fond of music, and can himself, though possessing hardly +any voice, "produce a pleasing musical effect." He will sit and listen +for hours to a sympathetic performer: but his ear, like all his faculties, +is abnormally sensitive: and a wrong note will drive him into a frenzy. +As the room grows fuller, he becomes restive. "The poetical character," +he has observed, "is not itself--it has no character. When I am in a +room with people, the identity of everyone in the room begins to press +upon me so that I am in a little time annihilated." + +In the light chit-chat of small talk and badinage he has no part: it +bewilders and annoys him. Those about him--especially the women--seem +to show up in their worst colours. Fanny herself appears, as he has +described her at their first meeting, an absolute _minx_. And presently +he contrives to slip stealthily away, and seats himself in some quiet +chamber, alone with the darkness and the May-scents of leaf and blossom. +"I hope I shall never marry," he groans once more; "the roaring wind is +my wife, and the stars through the window-panes are my children: the +mighty abstract idea of Beauty I have in all things, stifles the more +divided and minute domestic happiness. I do not live in this world alone, +but in a thousand worlds. No sooner am I alone, than shapes of epic +greatness are stationed round me, and serve my spirit the office which +is equivalent to a King's Bodyguard." + +The young man now lights his candles, and takes up a familiar and +favourite occupation;--the writing of a long letter to his brother +George in America. This epistle is, as one might expect, almost +entirely concerned with the art of poetry--what else has Keats to write +about?--whether from the side of technique, or inspiration. He dwells on +the adroit management of open and close vowels--he shows how "the poetry +of earth is never dead;" he discusses the need of constant application +to work, and how "the genius of poetry must work out its own salvation +in a man." And meanwhile, as fitful strains of song reach him from the +distance, and his roving gaze rivets itself upon a Wedgwood copy of a +Grecian vase--one of Brown's chief treasures--the fleeting wafts of +sound, and the lovely symmetry of shape, and the golden chain of +figures, blend themselves into one harmonious whole of word-music. + + Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, + Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, + Sylvan historian, who canst thus express + A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: + What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape + Of deities or mortals, or of both, + In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? + What men or gods are these? what maidens loath? + What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? + What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? + + Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard + Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; + Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, + Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: + Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave + Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; + Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, + Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; + She cannot fade, though hast not thou thy bliss, + For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! + + Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed + Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; + And, happy melodist, unwearied, + For ever piping songs for ever new; + More happy love! more happy, happy love! + For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, + For ever panting, and for ever young; + All breathing human passion far above, + That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy'd, + A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. + + Who are these coming to the sacrifice? + To what green altar, O mysterious priest, + Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, + And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? + What little town by river or sea-shore, + Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, + Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? + And, little town, thy streets for evermore + Will silent be; and not a soul to tell + Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. + + O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede + Of marble men and maidens overwrought, + With forest branches and trodden weed; + Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought + As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! + When old age shall this generation waste, + Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe + Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, + "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"--that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. + _Ode to a Grecian Urn._ + +The "shapes of epic greatness" throng closer and mightier around +him. The storm and stress of the day's thoughts have utterly drained +his small reserve of strength. Outworn by the vehemence of his own +conflicting emotions, John Keats lays his aching eyes and dark brown +head upon his arm as it rests along the table, and sinks into a +dreamless slumber of exhaustion; while, a + + "Happy melodist, unwearied, + For ever singing songs for ever new," + +the nightingale chants on outside. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Day with Keats, by +May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30451 *** |