From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May, The eye-lids with the passing coolness play, Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains. And calmest thoughts come round us—as of leaves Budding-fruit ripening in stillness-autumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, Sweet Sappho's cheek,— a sleeping infant's breath,— The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs, A woodland rivulet, a Poet's death. Jan. 1817. ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES FOR THE FIRST TIME. Y spirit is too weak; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep, That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceived glories of the brain Bring round the heart an indescribable feud; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time-with a billowy main, A sun, a shadow of a magnitude. H TO HAYDON. (WITH THE ABOVE.) AYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, W HEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like full garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And feel that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! Of unreflecting love!-then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. 1817. ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, THE W HO loves to peer up at the morning sun, With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek For meadows where the little rivers run; Who loves to linger with that brightest one Of Heaven-Hesperus-let him lowly speak These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. He who knows these delights, and too is prone To moralise upon a smile or tear, Will find at once a region of his own, A bower for his spirit, and will steer To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone, Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear. 1817. WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF. 79 TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. This sonnet was prefixed to Keats's first volume. "On the evening the last proof-sheet was brought from the printer," writes Mr. Cowden Clarke, "it was accompanied by the information that if a dedication was intended, it must be sent forthwith. Whereupon Keats withdrew to a side table, and, amid the buzz of a mixed conversation, he composed this sonnet, and sent it to Charles Ollier for publication." Ꮆ LORY and Loveliness have pass'd away; No wreathed incense do we see upborne A leafy luxury, seeing I could please, With these poor offerings, a man like thee. WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE.' 66 HIS pleasant tale is like a little copse: The honied lines so freshly interlace, To keep the reader in so sweet a place, Mr. Clarke had fallen asleep over the book, and on waking, found it on his lap with this addition. So that he here and there full-hearted stops; Come cool and suddenly against his face, Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings Were heard of none beside the mournful robins. 1817. ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER. OME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see, Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea: 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. O horrid dream! see how his body dips, Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath! |