Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Tribune of the people, only remembered by his sepulchre. In one of these mental voyages into the past, which precede death, Keats had told Severn that he thought "the intensest pleasure he had received in life was in watching the growth of flowers;" and another time, after lying a while quite still, he murmured, "I feel the flowers growing over me." And there they do grow even all the winter long,-violets and daisies mingling with the fresh herbage, and in the words of Shelley "making one in love with death, to think one should be buried in so sweet a place." Some years ago, when the writer of this memoir was at Rome, the thick grass had nearly overgrown the humble tombstone, which however few strangers of our race omit to visit; but whether this record of him escapes the wreck of years or not, there will remain, as long as the English language lasts, and be read, as far as it extends, the glorious monument, erected by the living genius of Shelley, the Elegy of Adonais. Nor will it be forgotten, how few years afterwards, in the extended buryingground, a little above the grave of Keats, was placed another stone, recording that below rests the passionate and world-worn heart of Shelley himself: "Cor Cordium."*

The thoughtful reader will hardly consider this biographical sketch, personal as it is, without its worth in estimating the due position of these Poems in the

* The words on the stone.

history of British literature. By common consent, the individuality of the Poet enters more directly into the consideration of his works than that of a writer in any other mental field. That these Poems should be the productions of a young surgeon's apprentice, with no more opportunities of study and reflection than belonged to the general middle class of his time and country, is in itself a psychological wonder, only to be paralleled by the phenomenon of Chatterton. While this reflection enhances the originality and palliates the defects of the earlier works of Keats, the picture of that sympathetic temper and genial disposition, which led his imagination to a novel and unscholastic treatment of classical tradition, and made him labor to realize a world of love and beauty in which his heart found itself most at home, would induce us to ascribe to the morose nature and lonely pride of Bristol's prodigy much of the misdirection of the rarest talents, and many otherwise undeserved calamities. And, when in pursuing the course of the later Poet we find him too the victim of critical contempt, haunted by pressing poverty, struck with acute physical suffering, and blighted in his deepest affections, and yet, with a genius above fate, rectifying and purifying his powers to the very last, our personal interest identifies itself with our literary admiration, and we better appreciate the merit of the poet by understanding the nobility of the man. It is not indeed that he was notably one of those who "are cradled into

poetry by wrong," and "learn in suffering what they teach in song," for his temperament demanded happiness for its atmosphere, and pleasure expanded without enervating his powers; but, it was perhaps required, for the vindication of his nature from the charge of sentimental sensuality and unmanly dependence, that he should be thus severely tried, and that the simple story of his life and death should be the refutation of those who knowingly calumniated, or unconsciously misapprehended him.

The works of Keats have now sustained, in some degree, the test of time; his generation, fertile in poetical ability, has passed away, and a fair comparison may be instituted among its competitors for fame. Without entering on a question of so much intricacy, it cannot be denied that these Poems are read by every accurate student of English literature. It is natural that the young should find especial delight in productions which take so much of their inspiration from the exuberant vitality of the author and of the world. But the eternal youth of antique beauty does not confine its influences to any portion of the life of man. And thus the admiration of the writings of Keats survives the hot impulses of early years, and these pages often remain open, when the clamorous sublimities of Byron and Shelley come to be unwelcome intruders on the calm of maturer age. To these and such voices the poetic sense still listens, and will listen ever, in preference to more instructive

harmonies; and the fancy recognizes in the unaccomplished promise of this wonderful boy, a symbol of that old world, where the perfect physical organization of man, and the perfect type of ideal beauty may seem to have been crushed and obliterated by barbarian hands, but which perished, in truth, because these very aspirations could only be realized in another and still more glorious order of the universe.

ENDYMION:

A POETIC ROMANCE.

INSCRIBED TO

THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN ANTIQUE SONG.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »