Towards thine own; till, wreckt in that convulsion, Itine went astray, and that was rent in twain ; A World shall be the altar. Lady mine, Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth, Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. To whatsoe'er of dull mortality Is mine, remain a vestal sister still; To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, Not mine, but me, henceforth be thou united Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. The hour is come :-the destined Star has risen Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set The sentinels-but true love never yet Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence: Like lightning, with invisible violence Piercing its continents; like Heaven's free breath, Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they; For he can burst his charnel, and make free The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, The soul in dust and chaos. Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, And, for the harbours are not safe and good, Undulate with the undulating tide: Or serene morning air; and far beyond, Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers Read in their smiles, and call reality. This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude. And I have fitted up some chambers there I have sent books and music there, and all Our simple life wants little, and true taste Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; With lightest winds, to touch their paramour; Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expired night asleep, Through which the awakened day can never peep; A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's, Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights; Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. And we will talk, until thought's melody Become too sweet for utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, Harmonising silence without a sound. Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, And our veins beat together; and our lips, With other eloquence than words, eclipse The soul that burns between them; and the wells Which boil under our being's inmost cells, The fountains of our deepest life, shall be Confused in passion's golden purity, grew As mountain-springs under the morning Sun. In one another's substance finding food, The winged words on which my soul would pierce Weak verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, And say: "We are the masters of thy slave; "What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine?" Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave, All singing loud: "Love's very pain is sweet, But its reward is in the world divine, Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste Over the hearts of men, until ye meet Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest, And bid them love each other, and be blest: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest,-for I am Love's. ADONAIS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS, AUTHOR OF ENDYMION, HYPERION, ETC. PREFACE. 'Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζώοισιν ἑνος. Φάρμακον ἦλθε, Βίων, ποτὶ σὸν στόμα, φάρμακον εἶδες· Ir is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem, a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his earlier compositions were modelled, prove at least that I am an impartial judge. I consider the fragment of "Hyperion," as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years. John Keats died at Rome, of a consumption, in his twenty-fourth year, on the 27th of December, 1820, and was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place. The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have dedicated these unworthy verses, was not less delicate and fragile than it was beautiful; and where canker-worms abound, what wonder, if its young flower was blighted in the bud? The savage criticism on his "Endymion," which appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued; and the succeeding acknowledgments from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted. It may be well said, that these wretched men know not what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without heed as to whether the poisoned PLATO. shaft lights on a heart made callous by many blows, or one, like Keats's, composed of more penetrable stuff One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calumniator. As to "Endymion," was it a poem, whatever might be its defects, to be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and panegyric, "Paris," and "Woman," and a "Syrian Tale," and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barret, and Mr. Howard Payne, and a long list of the illustrious obscure? Are these the men, who in their venal good-nature, presumed to draw a parallel between the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none. The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the press. I am given to understand that the wound which his sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of "Endymion" was exasperated at the bitter sense of unrequited benefits; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, no less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his genius, than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care. He was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last illness by Mr. Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been informed, "almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every prospect, to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend." Had I known these circumstances before the completion of my poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from such stuff as dreams are made of." His conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career-may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name! |