REMEMBRANCE. SWIFTER far than summer's flight- Art thou come and gone— As the wood when leaves are shed, The swallow summer comes again- To fly with thee, false as thou. Sunny leaves from any bough. Lilies for a bridal bed- Pansies let my flowers be: On the living grave I bear Waste one hope, one fear for me. LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI. SHE left me at the silent time When the moon had ceased to climb Which, though silent to the ear, Like notes which die when born, but still Haunt the echoes of the hill; And feeling ever-O too much!— The soft vibration of her touch, That even Fancy dares to claim :- In my faint heart. I dare not speak I sat and saw the vessels glide Such sweet and bitter pain as mine. Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day, And spear about the low rocks damp Too happy they, whose pleasure sought ΤΟ MUSIC, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 1822. And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on. Adonais AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS. ̓Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζώοισιν ἐῷος. PREFACE. It 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 twentyfourth year, on the of 1821; 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 cankerworms 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 uneffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted. 66 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 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. Barrett, 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 by 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 |