This stood as dedication to the 1817 volume, which was published in the month of March. Charles Cowden Clarke makes the statement: 'On the evening when the last proof sheet was brought from the printer, it was accompanied by the information that if a "dedication to the book was intended, it must be sent forthwith." Whereupon he withdrew to a side table, and in the buzz of a mixed conversation (for there were several friends in the room) he composed and brought to Charles Ollier, the publisher, the dedication sonnet to Leigh Hunt.' ON THE SEA Sent in a letter to Reynolds, dated April 17, 1817. From want of regular rest,' Keats says, 'I have been rather narvus, and the passage in Lear-"Do you not hear the sea?"has haunted me intensely.' He then copies the sonnet, which was published in The Champion, August 17 of the same year. The letter was written from Carisbrooke. He had been sent away from London by his brothers a month before, shortly after the appearance of his first volume of Poems, and his letters show the nervous, restless condition into which he had been driven by that venture. Ir keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the This sonnet was printed in 1829 in The Gem, a Literary Annual, edited by Thomas Hood. It is not dated, but may fairly be assigned to this time. COME 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! ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, 'THE STORY OF RIMINI' Dated 1817 in the Life, Letters and Literary Remains, and placed next after the preceding. ON SEEING A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR 6 'I was at Hunt's the other day,' writes Keats to Bailey, January 23, 1818, and he surprised me with a real authenticated lock of Milton's Hair. I know you would like what I wrote thereon, so here it is- - as they say of a sheep in a Nursery Book.' 'This I did,' he adds, after copying the lines, 'at Hunt's at his request-perhaps I should have done Lord something better alone and at home.' Houghton printed the verse in Life, Letters and Literary Remains. CHIEF of organic numbers! Old Scholar of the Spheres! Thy spirit never slumbers, O what a mad endeavour Who to thy sacred and ennobled hearse In a letter to his brothers, dated January 23, 1818, Keats says: 'I think a little change has taken place in my intellect lately I cannot bear to be uninterested or unemployed, I, who for so long a time have been addicted to passiveness. Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers. As an instance of this observe-I sat down yesterday to read King Lear once again: the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a sonnet, I wrote it, and began to read — (I know you would like to see it). So you see,' he goes on after copying the sonnet, 'I am getting at it with a sort of determination and strength, though verily I do not feel it at this moment.' The sonnet was printed in Life, Letters and Literary Remains. O GOLDEN-TONGUED Romance, with serene lute! Fair plumèd Syren, Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay, Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter sweet of this Shakespearean fruit: Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion, Begetters of our deep eternal theme! When through the old oak forest I am gone, LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN In sending his Robin Hood verses to Reynolds (see next poem), Keats added the following, but from the tenor of his letter, it would appear that they had been written earlier and were sent at Reynolds's request. The poem was published by Keats in his Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems, 1820. The friends were then in full tide of sympathy with the Elizabethans, and would have been very much at home with Shakespeare, Jonson, and Marlowe at the Mermaid. SOULS of Poets dead and gone, I have heard that on a day And pledging with contented smack Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? 10 20 ROBIN HOOD TO A FRIEND The friend was J. H. Reynolds, who had sent Keats two sonnets which he had written on Robin Hood. Keats's letter, dated February 3, 1818, is full of energetic pleasantry on the poetry which has a palpable design upon us,' and concludes: 'Let us have the old Poets and Robin Hood. Your letter and its sonnets gave me more pleasure than will the Fourth Book of Childe Harold, and the whole of anybody's life and opinions. In return for your Dish of Filberts, I have gathered a few Catkins. I hope they'll look pretty.' Keats included the poem in his Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other Poems, 1820, with some trifling changes of text. No! those days are gone away, No, the bugle sounds no more, And the twanging bow no more; Silent is the ivory shrill Past the heath and up the hill; There is no mid-forest laugh, Where lone Echo gives the half To some wight, amaz'd to hear Jesting, deep in forest drear. On the fairest time of June You may go, with sun or moon, Or the seven stars to light you, Or the polar ray to right you; But you never may behold Little John, or Robin bold; Never one, of all the clan, Thrumming on an empty can Some old hunting ditty, while He doth his green way beguile 10 20 |