Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends Part 8

Old Scholar of the Spheres!

Thy spirit never slumbers, But rolls about our ears For ever, and for ever!

O what a mad endeavour Worketh he, Who to thy sacred and enn.o.bled hea.r.s.e Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse And melody.

How heavenward thou soundest, Live Temple of sweet noise, And Discord unconfoundest, Giving Delight new joys, And Pleasure n.o.bler pinions!

O, where are thy dominions?

Lend thine ear To a young Delian oath,--aye, by thy soul, By all that from thy mortal lips did roll, And by the kernel of thine earthly love, Beauty, in things on earth, and things above, I swear!

When every childish fas.h.i.+on Has vanish'd from my rhyme, Will I, gray-gone in pa.s.sion, Leave to an after-time, Hymning and harmony Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life; But vain is now the burning and the strife, Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife With old Philosophy, And mad with glimpses of futurity!

For many years my offering must be hush'd; When I do speak, I'll think upon this hour, Because I feel my forehead hot and flush'd, Even at the simplest va.s.sal of thy power,-- A lock of thy bright hair,-- Sudden it came, And I was startled, when I caught thy name Coupled so unaware; Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood.

I thought I had beheld it from the flood.

This I did at Hunt's at his request--perhaps I should have done something better alone and at home.--I have sent my first Book to the press, and this afternoon shall begin preparing the Second--my visit to you will be a great spur to quicken the proceeding.--I have not had your Sermon returned--I long to make it the Subject of a Letter to you--What do they say at Oxford?

I trust you and Gleig pa.s.s much fine time together. Remember me to him and Whitehead. My Brother Tom is getting stronger, but his spitting of Blood continues. I sat down to read King Lear yesterday, and felt the greatness of the thing up to the Writing of a Sonnet preparatory thereto--in my next you shall have it.--There were some miserable reports of Rice's health--I went, and lo! Master Jemmy had been to the play the night before, and was out at the time--he always comes on his legs like a Cat. I have seen a good deal of Wordsworth. Hazlitt is lecturing on Poetry at the Surrey Inst.i.tution--I shall be there next Tuesday.

Your most affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS.

x.x.xII.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.

[Hampstead, January 30, 1818.]

My dear Taylor--These lines as they now stand about "happiness," have rung in my ears like "a chime a mending"--See here,

"Behold Wherein lies happiness, Peona? fold, etc."

It appears to me the very contrary of blessed. I hope this will appear to you more eligible.

"Wherein lies Happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellows.h.i.+p divine, A fellows.h.i.+p with Essence till we s.h.i.+ne Full alchemised, and free of s.p.a.ce--Behold The clear religion of Heaven--fold, etc."

You must indulge me by putting this in, for setting aside the badness of the other, such a preface is necessary to the subject. The whole thing must, I think, have appeared to you, who are a consecutive man, as a thing almost of mere words, but I a.s.sure you that, when I wrote it, it was a regular stepping of the Imagination towards a truth. My having written that argument will perhaps be of the greatest service to me of anything I ever did. It set before me the gradations of happiness, even like a kind of pleasure thermometer, and is my first step towards the chief attempt in the drama. The playing of different natures with joy and Sorrow--Do me this favour, and believe me

Your sincere friend

J. KEATS.

I hope your next work will be of a more general Interest. I suppose you cogitate a little about it, now and then.

x.x.xIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Hampstead, Sat.u.r.day [January 31, 1818].

My dear Reynolds--I have parcelled out this day for Letter Writing--more resolved thereon because your Letter will come as a refreshment and will have (sic parvis etc.) the same effect as a Kiss in certain situations where people become over-generous. I have read this first sentence over, and think it savours rather; however an inward innocence is like a nested dove, as the old song says....

Now I purposed to write to you a serious poetical letter, but I find that a maxim I met with the other day is a just one: "On cause mieux quand on ne dit pas _causons_." I was hindered, however, from my first intention by a mere muslin Handkerchief very neatly pinned--but "Hence, vain deluding,"

etc. Yet I cannot write in prose; it is a suns.h.i.+ny day and I cannot, so here goes,--

Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port, Away with old Hock and Madeira, Too earthly ye are for my sport; There's a beverage brighter and clearer.

Instead of a pitiful rummer, My wine overbrims a whole summer; My bowl is the sky, And I drink at my eye, Till I feel in the brain A Delphian pain-- Then follow, my Caius! then follow: On the green of the hill We will drink our fill Of golden suns.h.i.+ne, Till our brains intertwine With the glory and grace of Apollo!

G.o.d of the Meridian, And of the East and West, To thee my soul is flown, And my body is earthward press'd.-- It is an awful mission, A terrible division; And leaves a gulph austere To be fill'd with worldly fear.

Aye, when the soul is fled Too high above our head, Affrighted do we gaze After its airy maze, As doth a mother wild, When her young infant child Is in an eagle's claws-- And is not this the cause Of madness?--G.o.d of Song, Thou bearest me along Through sights I scarce can bear: O let me, let me share With the hot lyre and thee, The staid Philosophy.

Temper my lonely hours, And let me see thy bowers More unalarm'd!

My dear Reynolds, you must forgive all this ranting--but the fact is, I cannot write sense this Morning--however you shall have some--I will copy out my last Sonnet.

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled Books in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain-- When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting Love;--then on the sh.o.r.e Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

I must take a turn, and then write to Teignmouth. Remember me to all, not excepting yourself.

Your sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

x.x.xIV.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Hampstead, Tuesday [February 3, 1818].

My dear Reynolds--I thank you for your dish of Filberts--would I could get a basket of them by way of dessert every day for the sum of twopence.[45]

Would we were a sort of ethereal Pigs, and turned loose to feed upon spiritual Mast and Acorns--which would be merely being a squirrel and feeding upon filberts, for what is a squirrel but an airy pig, or a filbert but a sort of archangelical acorn? About the nuts being worth cracking, all I can say is, that where there are a throng of delightful Images ready drawn, simplicity is the only thing. The first is the best on account of the first line, and the "arrow, foil'd of its antler'd food,"

and moreover (and this is the only word or two I find fault with, the more because I have had so much reason to shun it as a quicksand) the last has "tender and true." We must cut this, and not be rattlesnaked into any more of the like. It may be said that we ought to read our contemporaries, that Wordsworth, etc., should have their due from us. But, for the sake of a few fine imaginative or domestic pa.s.sages, are we to be bullied into a certain Philosophy engendered in the whims of an Egotist? Every man has his speculations, but every man does not brood and peac.o.c.k over them till he makes a false coinage and deceives himself. Many a man can travel to the very bourne of Heaven, and yet want confidence to put down his half-seeing. Sancho will invent a Journey heavenward as well as anybody.

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us, and, if we do not agree, seems to put its hand into its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and un.o.btrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself--but with its subject. How beautiful are the retired flowers!--how would they lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway, crying out, "Admire me, I am a violet! Dote upon me, I am a primrose!" Modern poets differ from the Elizabethans in this: each of the moderns like an Elector of Hanover governs his petty state and knows how many straws are swept daily from the Causeways in all his dominions, and has a continual itching that all the Housewives should have their coppers well scoured: The ancients were Emperors of vast Provinces, they had only heard of the remote ones and scarcely cared to visit them. I will cut all this--I will have no more of Wordsworth or Hunt in particular--Why should we be of the tribe of Mana.s.seh, when we can wander with Esau? Why should we kick against the p.r.i.c.ks, when we can walk on Roses? Why should we be owls, when we can be eagles? Why be teased with "nice-eyed wagtails," when we have in sight "the Cherub Contemplation"?

Why with Wordsworth's "Matthew with a bough of wilding in his hand," when we can have Jacques "under an oak," etc.? The secret of the Bough of Wilding will run through your head faster than I can write it. Old Matthew spoke to him some years ago on some nothing, and because he happens in an Evening Walk to imagine the figure of the old Man, he must stamp it down in black and white, and it is henceforth sacred. I don't mean to deny Wordsworth's grandeur and Hunt's merit, but I mean to say we need not be teased with grandeur and merit when we can have them uncontaminated and un.o.btrusive. 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.

TO J. H. R. IN ANSWER TO HIS ROBIN HOOD SONNETS.

No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years.

Many times have Winter's shears, Frozen North and chilling East, Sounded tempests to the feast Of the forest's whispering fleeces, Since men paid no rent on Leases.

No! the Bugle sounds no more, And the tw.a.n.ging 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 any of all the clan, Thrumming on an empty can Some old hunting ditty, while He doth his green way beguile To fair Hostess Merriment Down beside the pasture Trent, For he left the merry tale, Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone the merry morris din, Gone the song of Gamelyn, Gone the tough-belted outlaw Idling in the "grene shawe": All are gone away and past!

And if Robin _should_ be cast Sudden from his turfed grave, And if Marian _should_ have Once again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks, Fall'n beneath the Dock-yard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her--"strange that honey Can't be got without hard money!"

So it is! yet let us sing, Honour to the old bow-string, Honour to the bugle-horn, Honour to the woods unshorn, Honour to the Lincoln green, Honour to the archer keen, Honour to tight little John, And the horse he rode upon: Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood!

Honour to maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan-- Though their days have hurried by Let us two a burden try.