1.13: John Keats (1795-1821)

John Keats, like Blake, was trained in a profession. He studied to be a surgeon and was expected to earn his own living. His mother Frances Jennings was from the landed gentry; his father Thomas Keats was a livery stable-keeper. Because his society consequently placed him within the labor class, Keats’s decision to write poetry, a “genteel” art, was in itself a radical act.

His poetic aspirations were encouraged by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), editor at The Examiner, who published Keats’ first collection of poems and Endymion, an epic poem based on the poetic myth of a young shepherd who becomes beloved by the goddess of the moon. During the course of writing this epic, Keats honed his skill, expressing the desire for just ten years more to reach his poetic epitome. He lived for only two.

Keats’ first published poems received harsh criticism, to some extent sharpened by Keats’ association with Hunt and by Keats’ lower class status. The conjunction of these criticisms and Keats’s death at the age of twenty-five led some contemporaries to believe that Keats died of a broken heart. This belief connected with some views of Keats’ poetry as sensual and emotional without intellectual heft. Keats’ letters, though, published after his death, demonstrate his extraordinary conceptual thinking, about poetry’s role in society and about what makes a poem or poet great.

His theory of Negative Capability in particular fleshes out his ideas on the imagination. Negative Capability is sustained potentiality; it allows all possibilities to exist at once in the imagination together without the poet reaching towards one and thus eliminating all of the others. Through Negative Capability, the poet sees both the world of color, or the rainbow world, and the world in black and white; sees both the glittery surface of the ocean and the menacing whales beneath; sees both the delightful, delicate sparrow and the worm-ravening beast. Through Negative Capability, the poet doesn’t reach after fact or reason but allows all things—new stars, flowers bred by the fancy—to be. The completion of an experience is the negative capability, the not reaching after. For Keats, the poet sustains intensity and detachment, poise, suspension.

To learn medicine, Keats worked as a dresser, that is, the person who cleans up after the surgeons’ bloody work. He was apprenticed to a surgeon named Hammond—sometimes called “Butcher” Hammond—for five years, but stayed with him three and a half years. Keats then studied with well-known doctors, particularly Astley Cooper, who mentored Keats. After a year more of study, Keats began to doubt his abilities and interest in medicine. He took an apothecary license, but, with six months of study remaining for him to license as a surgeon, Keats left medicine for poetry.

His medical skills, though, were required in his caring for his brother Tom, who died of tuberculosis. His emotional skills were called on when he fell in love with Fanny Brawne (1800-1865), the daughter of his landlord. He hoped to marry her, but his having contracted tuberculosis—probably from his mother—made that impossible, due to the disease being extremely contagious. In hopes of recovery, he traveled to Rome, accompanied by his friend the portrait artist John Severn (1793- 1879). Keats died in Rome, with both acceptance and bitter awareness of his fate. He described himself as being like a frog going out in the first frost. And he said his epitaph should read that “here is one whose name is writ on water,” that is, no sooner visible than gone. His last hours were spent writing letters of to his friends, to whom he made an “awkward bow.”

His poetry is characterized by its sensuality, to the point of sensual overload, and its pursuit of beauty—often (but not always) idealized like Greek art; its use of paradox that evokes Negative Capability by sustaining opposites; and its subjectivity to the point of relativity, for what the heart loves becomes its truth and whatever the imagination seizes on as beauty must be true. He lauds imagination as a power to help people recover from sorrow and misery, from the inevitable pains and suffering of life.

1.13.1: Letter to George and Thomas Keats

Hampstead Sunday

22 December 1818

My dear Brothers I must crave your pardon for not having written ere this [ . . . ] [T]he excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth—Examine King Lear & you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited, in which to bury its repulsiveness— The picture is larger than Christ rejected—I dined with Haydon the sunday after you left, & had a very pleasant day, I dined too (for I have been out too much lately) with Horace Smith & met his two brothers with Hill & Kingston & one Du Bois, they only served to convince me, how superior humour is to wit in respect to enjoyment—These men say things which make one start, without making one feel, they are all alike; their manners are alike; they all know fashionables; they have a mannerism in their very eating & drinking, in their mere handling a Decanter— They talked of Kean & his low company—Would I were with that company instead of yours said I to myself! I know such like acquaintance will never do for me & yet I am going to Reynolds, on wednesday—Brown & Dilke walked with me & back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

1.13.2: “The Eve of St. Agnes”

St. Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;

Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,

And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,

Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,

Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:

Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,

He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

Northward he turneth through a little door,

And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue

Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor;

But no—already had his deathbell rung;

The joys of all his life were said and sung:

His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:

Another way he went, and soon among

Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,

And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.

That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;

And so it chanc’d, for many a door was wide,

From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,

The silver, snarling trumpets ‘gan to chide:

The level chambers, ready with their pride,

Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:

The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,

Star’d where upon their heads the cornice rests,

With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.

At length burst in the argent revelry,

With plume, tiara, and all rich array,

Numerous as shadows haunting faerily

The brain, new stuff’d, in youth, with triumphs gay

Of old romance. These let us wish away,

And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,

Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,

On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care,

As she had heard old dames full many times declare.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,

Young virgins might have visions of delight,

And soft adorings from their loves receive

Upon the honey’d middle of the night,

If ceremonies due they did aright;

As, supperless to bed they must retire,

And couch supine their beauties, lily white;

Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require

Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:

The music, yearning like a God in pain,

She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,

Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train

Pass by—she heeded not at all: in vain

Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,

And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain,

But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:

She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.

She danc’d along with vague, regardless eyes,

Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:

The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs

Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort

Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;

‘Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,

Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,

Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,

And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

So, purposing each moment to retire,

She linger’d still. Meantime, across the moors,

Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire

For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,

Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores

All saints to give him sight of Madeline,

But for one moment in the tedious hours,

That he might gaze and worship all unseen;

Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.

He ventures in: let no buzz’d whisper tell:

All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords

Will storm his heart, Love’s fev’rous citadel:

For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,

Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,

Whose very dogs would execrations howl

Against his lineage: not one breast affords

Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,

Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,

Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,

To where he stood, hid from the torch’s flame,

Behind a broad half-pillar, far beyond

The sound of merriment and chorus bland:

He startled her; but soon she knew his face,

And grasp’d his fingers in her palsied hand,

Saying, “Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;

They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!

“Get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish Hildebrand;

He had a fever late, and in the fit

He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:

Then there’s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit

More tame for his gray hairs—

Alas me! flit! Flit like a ghost away.”— “Ah, Gossip dear,

We’re safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,

And tell me how”—“Good Saints! not here, not here;

Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.”

He follow’d through a lowly arched way,

Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,

And as she mutter’d “Well-a—well-a-day!”

He found him in a little moonlight room,

Pale, lattic’d, chill, and silent as a tomb.

“Now tell me where is Madeline,” said he,

“O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom

Which none but secret sisterhood may see,

When they St. Agnes’ wool are weaving piously.”

“St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes’ Eve—

Yet men will murder upon holy days:

Thou must hold water in a witch’s sieve,

And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,

To venture so: it fills me with amaze

To see thee, Porphyro!—St. Agnes’ Eve!

God’s help! my lady fair the conjuror plays

This very night: good angels her deceive!

But let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.”

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,

While Porphyro upon her face doth look,

Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone

Who keepeth clos’d a wond’rous riddle-book,

As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.

But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told

His lady’s purpose; and he scarce could brook

Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,

And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,

Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart

Made purple riot: then doth he propose

A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:

“A cruel man and impious thou art:

Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream

Alone with her good angels, far apart

From wicked men like thee. Go, go!—I deem

Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.”

“I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,”

Quoth Porphyro: “O may I ne’er find grace

When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,

If one of her soft ringlets I displace,

Or look with ruffian passion in her face:

Good Angela, believe me by these tears;

Or I will, even in a moment’s space,

Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen’s ears,

And beard them, though they be more fang’d than wolves and bears.”

“Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?

A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,

Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;

Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,

Were never miss’d.”—Thus plaining, doth she bring

A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;

So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,

That Angela gives promise she will do

Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.

Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,

Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide

Him in a closet, of such privacy

That he might see her beauty unespy’d,

And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,

While legion’d faeries pac’d the coverlet,

And pale enchantment held her sleepy-ey’d.

Never on such a night have lovers met,

Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

“It shall be as thou wishest,” said the Dame:

“All cates and dainties shall be stored there

Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame

Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,

For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare

On such a catering trust my dizzy head.

Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer

The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,

Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.”

So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.

The lover’s endless minutes slowly pass’d;

The dame return’d, and whisper’d in his ear

To follow her; with aged eyes aghast

From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,

Through many a dusky gallery, they gain

The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste;

Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.

His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,

Old Angela was feeling for the stair,

When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,

Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:

With silver taper’s light, and pious care,

She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led

To a safe level matting. Now prepare,

Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;

She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled.

Out went the taper as she hurried in;

Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:

She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin

To spirits of the air, and visions wide:

No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!

But to her heart, her heart was voluble,

Paining with eloquence her balmy side;

As though a tongueless nightingale should swell

Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,

All garlanded with carven imag’ries

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,

And diamonded with panes of quaint device,

Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,

As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;

And in the midst, ‘mong thousand heraldries,

And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,

A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,

As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory, like a saint:

She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven:— Porphyro grew faint:

She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,

Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;

Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;

Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees

Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:

Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,

Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,

In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,

But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,

In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,

Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d

Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;

Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;

Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;

Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;

Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,

Porphyro gaz’d upon her empty dress,

And listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced

To wake into a slumberous tenderness;

Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,

And breath’d himself: then from the closet crept,

Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,

And over the hush’d carpet, silent, stept,

And ‘tween the curtains peep’d, where, lo!—how fast she slept.

Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon

Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set

A table, and, half anguish’d, threw thereon

A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:—

O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!

The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,

The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarinet,

Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:—

The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,

While he forth from the closet brought a heap

Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;

With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d

From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,

From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.

These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand

On golden dishes and in baskets bright

Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand

In the retired quiet of the night,

Filling the chilly room with perfume light.—

“And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!

Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:

Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake,

Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.”

Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm

Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream

By the dusk curtains:—’twas a midnight charm

Impossible to melt as iced stream:

The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;

Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:

It seem’d he never, never could redeem

From such a stedfast spell his lady’s eyes;

So mus’d awhile, entoil’d in woofed phantasies.

Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,—

Tumultuous,—and, in chords that tenderest be,

He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute,

In Provence call’d, “La belle dame sans mercy”:

Close to her ear touching the melody;—

Wherewith disturb’d, she utter’d a soft moan:

He ceas’d—she panted quick—and suddenly

Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone:

Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,

Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:

There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d

The blisses of her dream so pure and deep

At which fair Madeline began to weep,

And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;

While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;

Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,

Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.

“Ah, Porphyro!” said she, “but even now

Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,

Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;

And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:

How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!

Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,

Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!

Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,

For if thy diest, my Love, I know not where to go.”

Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far

At these voluptuous accents, he arose

Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star

Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;

Into her dream he melted, as the rose

Blendeth its odour with the violet,—

Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows

Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet

Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.

‘Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:

“This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!”

‘Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:

“No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!

Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.—

Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?

I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,

Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;—

A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing.”

“My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!

Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?

Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?

Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest

After so many hours of toil and quest,

A famish’d pilgrim,—sav’d by miracle.

Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest

Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think’st well

To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.

“Hark! ‘tis an elfin-storm from faery land,

Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:

Arise—arise! the morning is at hand;—

The bloated wassaillers will never heed:—

Let us away, my love, with happy speed;

There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,—

Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:

Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,

For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”

She hurried at his words, beset with fears,

For there were sleeping dragons all around,

At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears—

Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.—

In all the house was heard no human sound.

A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;

The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,

Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;

And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;

Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;

Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,

With a huge empty flaggon by his side:

The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,

But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:

By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:—

The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;—

The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago

These lovers fled away into the storm.

That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,

And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form

Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,

Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old

Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;

The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,

For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

1.13.3: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”

1

Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight,

Alone and palely loitering;

The sedge is wither’d from the lake,

And no birds sing.

2

Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

3

I see a lilly on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheek a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

4

I met a lady in the meads

Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

5

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sideways would she lean, and sing

A faery’s song.

6

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look’d at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

7

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said,

I love thee true.

8

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gaz’d and sighed deep,

And there I shut her wild sad eyes—

So kiss’d to sleep.

9

And there we slumber’d on the moss,

And there I dream’d, ah woe betide

The latest dream I ever dream’d

On the cold hill side.

10

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

Who cry’d—”Le belle Dame sans mercy

Hath thee in thrall!”

11

I saw their starv’d lips in the gloom

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill side.

12

And this is why I sojourn here

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,

And no birds sing.

1.13.4: “Ode to Psyche”

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

Even into thine own soft-conched ear:

Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?

I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,

And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,

Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side

In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof

Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

A brooklet, scarce espied:

Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,

They lay calm-breathing, on the bedded grass;

Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;

Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,

As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,

And ready still past kisses to outnumber

At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:

The winged boy I knew;

But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?

His Psyche true!

O latest born and loveliest vision far

Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy!

Fairer than Phoebe’s sapphire-region’d star,

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

Nor altar heap’d with flowers;

Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan

Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

From chain-swung censer teeming;

No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,

Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retir’d

From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir’d.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

Upon the midnight hours;

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,

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;

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,

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

To let the warm Love in!

1.13.5: “Ode to a Nightingale”

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,—

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;

And mid-May’s eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ‘tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

1.13.6: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

1.13.7: “Ode on Melancholy”

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;

His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung

1.13.8: “To Autumn”

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly born;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

1.13.9: Reading and Review Questions

1. What does it mean, in Eve of St. Agnes, for Porphyro to melt into Madeline’s dream? Consider that her dream supposedly gives her a vision of her beloved. Consider that she wakes up from her dream to see Porphyro as pallid and dreary. How, and why, can he blend with her vision of him as being spiritual and clear?
2. How, if at all, does La Belle Dame Sans Merci allow the reader to experience Negative Capability? Consider the possible readings of “She looked at me as she did love,” or “And sure in language strange she said—I love thee true.”
3. Why, of all the gods and goddesses in Greek mythology, does Keats “worship” Psyche?
4. How, if at all, and why does Keats make myths with his own poetry? Consider the new mythical tale he gives of Cupid and Psyche. Consider the song of the nightingale that is heard through the corridors of the past to the present, a past and present that is both sad and happy.