Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film.' 'None can usurp this height,' return'd that shade,

'But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest. All else who find a haven in the world, Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,

150

If by a chance into this fane they come, Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half.' 'Are there not thousands in the world,' said I, Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade, 'Who love their fellows even to the death, Who feel the giant agony of the world, And more, like slaves to poor humanity, Labour for mortal good? I sure should see Other men here, but I am here alone.' "Those whom thou spakest of are no visionaries,'

160

Rejoin'd that voice; they are no dreamers weak ;

They seek no wonder but the human face,
No music but a happy-noted voice:

They come not here, they have no thought to

come;

And thou art here, for thou art less than they.
What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,
To the great world? Thou art a dreaming
thing,

A fever of thyself: think of the earth;
What bliss, even in hope, is there for thee? 170
What haven? every creature hath its home,
Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,
Whether his labours be sublime or low-
The pain alone, the joy alone, distinct :
Only the dreamer venoms all his days,
Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.
Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shared,
Such things as thou art are admitted oft
Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,
And suffer'd in these temples: for that cause 180
Thou standest safe beneath this statue's knees.'
That I am favour'd for unworthiness,
By such propitious parley medicined
In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,

Aye, and could weep for love of such award.'
So answer'd I, continuing, ‘If it please,
Majestic shadow, tell me where I am,
Whose altar this, for whom this incense curls;
What image this whose face I cannot see

For the broad marble knees; and who thou art,

Of accent feminine so courteous ? '

190

Then the tall shade, in drooping linen veil'd, Spoke out, so much more earnest, that her breath

Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung

About a golden censer from her hand
Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed
Long-treasured tears. This temple, sad and

lone,

Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war
Foughten long since by giant hierarchy
Against rebellion: this old image here,
Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell,
Is Saturn's; I, Moneta, left supreme,
Sole goddess of this desolation.'

I had no words to answer, for my tongue,
Useless, could find about its roofed home
No syllable of a fit majesty

200

211

To make rejoinder to Moneta's mourn:
There was a silence, while the altar's blaze
Was fainting for sweet food. I look'd thereon,
And on the paved floor, where nigh were piled
Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps
Of other crisped spicewood: then again
I look'd upon the altar, and its horns
Whiten'd with ashes, and its languorous flame,
And then upon the offerings again;
And so, by turns, till sad Moneta cried :
'The sacrifice is done, but not the less
Will I be kind to thee for thy good will.
My power, which to me is still a curse,
Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes
Still swooning vivid through my globed brain,
With an electral changing misery,

220

Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not

What eyes are upward cast. As I had found
A grain of gold upon a mountain's side,
And, twing'd with avarice, strain'd out my
eyes

To search its sullen entrails rich with ore,
So, at the view of sad Moneta's brow,
I ask'd to see what things the hollow brow
Behind environ'd: what high tragedy
In the dark secret chambers of her skull
Was acting, that could give so dread a stress
To her cold lips, and fill with such a light
Her planetary eyes, and touch her voice
With such a sorrow? 'Shade of Memory!'
Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,

250

By this last temple, by the golden age,
By great Apollo, thy dear foster-child,
And by thyself, forlorn divinity,
The pale Omega of a wither'd race,
Let me behold, according as thou saidst,
What in thy brain so ferments to and fro!'
No sooner had this conjuration past
My devout lips, than side by side we stood
(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine)
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star.
Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy boughs,
And saw what first I thought an image huge,
Like to the image pedestall'd so high
In Saturn's temple; then Moneta's voice
Came brief upon mine ear. 'So Saturn sat
When he had lost his realms;' whereon there
grew

270

280

A power within me of enormous ken
To see as a god sees, and take the depth
Of things as nimbly as the outward eye
Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme
Of those few words hung vast before my mind
With half-unravell'd web. I sat myself
Upon an eagle's watch, that I might see,
And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of life
Was in this shrouded vale, - not so much air
As in the zoning of a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass
But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.
A stream went noiseless by, still deaden'd more
By reason of the fallen divinity
Spreading more shade; the Naiad 'mid her
reeds

Prest her cold finger closer to her lips.

292

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went No further than to where old Saturn's feet

309

But there came one who, with a kindred hand,
Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low
With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
Then came the griev'd voice Mnemosyne,
And griev'd I hearken'd. That divinity
Whom thou saw'st step from yon forlornest
wood,
And with slow pace approach our fallen king,
Is Thea, softest-natured of our brood.'
I mark'd the Goddess, in fair statuary
Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,
And in her sorrow nearer woman's tears.
There was a list'ning fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun ;

As if the venom'd cloud of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder labouring up,
One hand she press'd upon that aching spot 320
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;
The other upon Saturn's bended neck
She laid, and to the level of his ear
Leaning, with parted lips some words she spoke
In solemn tenour and deep organ-tone;
Some mourning words, which in our feeble
tongue

Would come in this like accenting; how frail
To that large utterance of the early gods!

I have no comfort for thee; no, not one;
I cannot say, wherefore thus sleepest thou?
For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth
Knows thee not, so afflicted, for a god.
The Ocean, too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
Is emptied of thy hoary majesty.

Thy thunder, captious at the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;

And thy sharp lightning, in unpractis'd hands,
Scourges and burns our once serene domain. 34

'With such remorseless speed still come new

woes,

That unbelief has not a space to breathe. Saturn! sleep on me thoughtless, why should I

Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes
Have chang'd a god into an aching palsy.
Moan, brethren, moan, for I have no strength
left;

Weak as the reed, weak, feeble as my voice.
Oh! Oh! the pain, the pain of feebleness;
Moan, moan, for still I thaw; or give me help,
Throw down those imps, and give me victory.
Let me hear other groans, and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival,
From the gold peaks of heaven's high-piled
clouds ;

Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir

410

10

'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,

21

30

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,

40

When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.

5x

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,

60

That scar'd away the meek ethereal hours, And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.

II. FRAGMENTS

The three fragments that follow are pub. lished in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, without date.

I

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.

II

MODERN LOVE

AND what is love? It is a doll dress'd up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on
Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss's comb is made a pearl tiara,

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.

III

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, the lights bring
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

IV

EXTRACTS FROM AN OPERA

First given in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, and there dated 1818. In that case, it is most likely that the verses formed a portion of some experiment going on to the autumn after Keats's return from his northern journey.

O! WERE I one of the Olympian twelve,
Their godships should pass this into a law,
That when a man doth set himself in toil
After some beauty veiled far away,
Each step he took should make his lady's
hand

More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more

fair;

And for each briar-berry he might eat, A kiss should bud upon the tree of love, And pulp and ripen richer every hour, To melt away upon the traveller's lips.

DAISY'S SONG

THE sun, with his great eye,
Sees not so much as I ;

And the moon, all silver-proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.

And O the spring - the spring!

I lead the life of a King!
Couch'd in the teeming grass,

I spy each pretty lass.

I look where no one dares,
And I stare where no one stares,
And when the night is nigh,
Lambs bleat my lullaby.