V.

ANSWER TO A SONNET BY J. H.

REYNOLDS, ENDING

"Dark eyes are dearer far

Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell."

LUE! "Tis the life of heaven,-the domain

Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the
sun,-

The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,-
The bosomer of clouds, gold, grey, and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters-ocean

And all its vassal streams: pools numberless
May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness.
Blue! gentle cousin of the forest-green,

Married to green in all the sweetest flowers--Forget-me-not, the blue-bell,-and, that queen Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great, When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!

Feb. 1818.

VI.

TO HOMER

TANDING aloof in giant ignorance,
Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs per-
chance

To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.

So thou wast blind!-but then the veil was rent; For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live, And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent,

And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive; Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light, And precipices show untrodden green ; There is a budding morrow in midnight; There is a triple sight in blindness keen; Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befel, To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell,

1818.

VII.

THAT a week could be an age, and we Felt parting and warm meeting every week,

Then one poor year a thousand years
would be,

The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:
So could we live long life in little space,
So time itself would be annihilate,
So a day's journey in oblivious haze

To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!

To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind,

And keep our souls in one eternal pant!

This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught Me how to harbour such a happy thought.

ΤΟ

VIIL

IME'S sea hath been five years at its slow ebb;

Long hours have to and fro let
creep the sand;

Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web,
And snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
And yet I never look on midnight sky,

But I behold thine eyes' well memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye,

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower,

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips,

And harkening for a love-sound, doth devour
Its sweets in the wrong sense :-Thou dost
eclipse

Every delight with sweet remembering,
And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.

IX.

TO SLEEP.

SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

A lady whom he saw for some few moments at Vauxhall.

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul.'

1819.

Σ

ON FAME.

AME, like a wayward girl, will still be

coy

To those who woo her with too

slavish knees,

But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;

I The rough draft of this sonnet is to he seen in the fly-leaf of the "Paradise Lost," that contains Keats's Notes on Milton-puolished in the American Magazine "The Dial." It is as follows:

"O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-flush'd eyes embower'd from the light;

As weariness in darkness is divine,

O soothest Sleep, if so it please thee, close

My willing eyes in midst of this thine hymn,

Or wait the amen ere thy poppy throws

Its sweet dark dews o'er every pulse and limb,
Then shut this hushed casket of my soul,
And turn the key round in the oiled wards,
And let it rest until the snow has stole,
Bright-

The rest is illegible and unfinished. The version in Keats's own opy of "Endymion" only differs from the text in the substitution, in the eighth line, of the epithet 'dewy' for 'lulling.'

She is a Gipsy,-will not speak to those

Who have not learnt to be content without her; A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close,

Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her; A very Gipsy is she, Nilus-born,

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;

Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are !
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

1819.

XI

ON FAME.

"You cannot eat your cake and have it too"-Proverb,

H

OW fever'd is the man, who cannot look Upon his mortal days with temperate blood,

Who vexes all the leaves of his life's

book,

And robs his fair name of its maidenhood;

It is as if the rose should pluck herself,
Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom,
As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,

Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom, But the rose leaves herself upon the briar,

For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire;

The undisturbed lake has crystal space;
Why then should man, teasing the world for

giace,

Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

1810