JOHN KEATS

(1795-1821)

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

MUCH have I travelled 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-browed 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 1 when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

1 History, as the commentators all remind us, here requires Balboa. Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered the Pacific in 1513.

JOHN KEATS

THE HUMAN SEASONS

FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the

year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span :
He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto Heaven quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness-to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

JOHN KEATS

TO A LADY SEEN FOR A FEW MOMENTS AT VAUXHALL

TIME's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb;
Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand,
Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web,
And snared by the ungloving of thy hand.
yet I never look on midnight sky

And

But I behold thine eye's well memoried light;
I cannot look upon the rose's dye

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips,

And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour
Its sweets in the wrong sense: Thou dost eclipse

Every delight with sweet remembering,

And grief into my darling joys dost bring.

JOHN KEATS

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER

COME hither, all sweet maidens, soberly,
Down-looking aye, and with a chastened 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,

Untouched, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewildered '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.

JOHN KEATS

ON THE SEA

Ir keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound. Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired,

Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;

Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude, Or fed with too much cloying melody,

Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!