From happy pieties, thy lucent fans, I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd. Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged censer teeming ; Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, 45 50 Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; 55 And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in! 60 65 FANCY. EVER let the Fancy roam, At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let winged Fancy wander 5 Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind's cage-door, She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. O sweet Fancy! let her loose; ΙΟ 15 Sir Charles Dilke's copy of Endymion contains a very interesting copy of these verses, dated 1818, from which an extract was given in The Athenæum of the 15th of September 1877. The variations noted below show Keats's usual good judgment in regard to change and exclusion. (6) In the manuscript this line is Towards heaven still spread beyond her. (15-16) In the manuscript, we read kissing in place of tasting, and in an ingle for by the ingle. When the soundless earth is muffled, To banish Even from her sky. Sit thee there, and send abroad, Fancy, high-commission'd:-send her! She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it :-thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reaped corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn : And, in the same moment-hark! 'Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, (28) She'll have, in the manuscript. (29) The manuscript reads She will bring thee spite of frost... (43-5) In the manuscript these lines stand thus: And in the same moment hark To the early April lark And the rooks with busy caw... 20 25 30 35 40 45 Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; 50 (50) In the manuscript we read Hedge-row primrose. And the snake all winter-shrank Cast its skin on sunny bank... (66) There is an additional couplet after this line in the manuscript For the same sleek-throated mouse To store up in its winter house. (67-8) Instead of this couplet the manuscript has the following four lines: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth White as Hebe's, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down O sweet fancy let her loose! Every pleasure every joy Not a mistress but doth cloy... (73) Does in the manuscript. (76) The manuscript reads too oft and oft. (81) ... Proserpin gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis Was gathered-which cost Ceres all that pain Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 269-72. (89-91) Instead of these three lines the manuscript has the follow ing seventeen : And Jove grew languid. Mistress fair! |