'Mortal, that thou may'st understand aright, I humanize my sayings to thine ear, Making comparisons of earthly things; Or thou might'st better listen to the wind, Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden thro' the trees. In melancholy realms big tears are shed, . More sorrow like to this, and such like woe, Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe. The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound, Groan for the old allegiance once more, Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice. But one of the whole eagle-brood still keeps His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty: Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up From Man to the Sun's God - yet insecure. For as upon the earth dire prodigies Fright and perplex, so also shudders he;
Not at dog's howl or gloom-bird's hated screech, Or the familiar visiting of one
Upon the first toll of his passing bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,
Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,
Bastion'd with pyramids of shining gold,
And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flash angerly; when he would taste the wreaths
Of incense breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes
Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick;
Wherefore when harbour'd in the sleepy West,
After the full completion of fair day,
For rest divine upon exalted couch,
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He paces through the pleasant hours of ease,
With strides colossal, on from hall to hall,
While far within each aisle and deep recess
His winged minions in close clusters stand
Amaz'd, and full of fear; like anxious men,
Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,
When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.
Even now where Saturn, rous'd from icy trance,
Goes step for step with Thea from yon woods,
Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
Is sloping to the threshold of the West.
Thither we tend.' Now in clear light I stood,
Reliev'd from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne
Was sitting on a square-edg'd polish'd stone,
That in its lucid depths reflected pure
Her priestess' garments. My quick eyes ran on
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed
light,
And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades.
Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion;
His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels,
And gave a roar as if of earthy fire,
That scar'd away the meek ethereal hours, And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.
The three fragments that follow are published in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, without date.
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,
Or any other wondrous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato ;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren, or Eagle, finds his way to
All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Comes articulate and presseth
On his ear like mother-tongue.
And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the
world,
If Queens and Soldiers have play'd deep for hearts,
It is no reason why such agonies
Should be more common than the growth of weeds.
Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl
The Queen of Egypt melted, and I'll say
That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.
That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter's clay,
Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
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,
Of Haydon's in its fresh magnificence.
My wine O good! 't is here at my desire,
And I must sit to supper with my friar.
FRAGMENT OF THE CASTLE BUILDER
TO-NIGHT I'll have my friar - let me think
About my room - I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and dis-
play
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;
A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon a mat of roses lying,
Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying;
An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower; just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon,
in!
And see what more my phantasy can win.
It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;
The draperies are so, as tho' they had
Been made for Cleopatra's winding-sheet;
And opposite the stedfast eye doth meet
A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,
In letters raven-sombre, you may trace
Old Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin.'
Greek busts and statuary have ever been
Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far,
Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;
Therefore 't is sure a want of Attic taste
determined, will he, nill he, to send you some lines, so you will excuse the unconnected subject and careless verse. You know, I am sure, Claude's Enchanted Castle, and I wish you may be pleased with my remembrance of it.'
DEAR Reynolds! As last night I lay in bed,
There came before my eyes that wonted thread
Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,
That every other minute vex and please:
Things all disjointed come from north and
south,
Two Witch's eyes above a Cherub's mouth,
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,
And Alexander with his nightcap on;
Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,
And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;
And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,
Making the best of 's way towards Soho.
Few are there who escape these visitings, Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,
And thro' whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,
No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid's toes;
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,
And young Æolian harps personify'd;
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,
The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife
Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,
The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:
A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,
Moves round the point, and throws her anchor
stiff;
The mariners join hymn with those on land.
Part of the building was a chosen See, Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee; The other part, two thousand years from him, Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim; Then there's a little wing, far from the Sun, Built by a Lapland Witch turn'd maudlin Nun; And many other juts of aged stone Founded with many a mason-devil's groan.
The doors all look as if they op'd themselves: The windows as if latch'd by Fays and Elves, 50 And from them comes a silver flash of light, As from the westward of a Summer's night; Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyes Gone mad through olden songs and poesies.
See what is coming from the distance dim!
A golden Galley all in silken trim!
Three rows of oars are lightening, moment
whiles
Into the verd'rous bosoms of those isles;
Towards the shade, under the Castle wall,
It comes in silence, - now 't is hidden all.
The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gate
An echo of sweet music doth create
A fear in the poor Herdsman who doth bring
His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,
He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
To all his friends, and they believe him not.
O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
69
Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle, but my flag is not unfurl'd
On the Admiral-staff, and so philosophise
I dare not yet! O, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be
my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,
Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn.
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.
Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale, And cannot speak it: the first page I read Upon a Lampit rock of green sea-weed Among the breakers; 't was a quiet eve, The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave An untumultuous fringe of silver foamAlong the flat brown sand; I was at home
Sent in a letter to Reynolds, dated January 31, 1818. 'I cannot write in prose,' says Keats; 'it is a sunshiny day and I cannot, so here goes.'
HENCE Burgundy, Claret, and Port,
Away with old Hock and Madeira, Too earthly ye are for my sport;
There's a beverage brighter and clearer. Instead of a pitiful rummer,
My wine overbrims a whole summer;
My bowl is the sky,
And I drink at my eye,
Till I feel in the brain
A Delphian pain
Then follow, my Caius! then follow :
On the green of the hill
We will drink our fill
Of golden sunshine,
Till our brains intertwine
With the glory and grace of Apollo! God of the Meridian,
And of the East and West,
To thee my soul is flown,
And my body is earthward press'd.
It is an awful mission,
A terrible division;
And leaves a gulf austere
To be fill'd with worldly fear.
Aye, when the soul is fled
To high above our head,
Affrighted do we gaze
After its airy maze,
|