Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 003.djvu/535

1818.] room for the whole of it, but shall take a few pages here and there.

Not content with the authentic love of the Moon, Keats makes his hero captivate another supernatural lady, of whom no notice occurs in any of his predecessors.

But we find that we really have no patience for going over four books filled with such amorous scenes as these, with subterraneous journeys equally amusing, and submarine processions equally beautiful; but we must not omit the most interesting scene of the whole piece.

"Thus spake he, and that moment felt endued With power to dream deliciously; so wound Through a dim passage, searching till he found The smoothest mossy bed and deepest, where He threw himself, and just into the air Stretching his indolent arms, he took, O bliss! A naked waist: "Fair Cupid, whence is this? A well-known voice sigh'd, 'Sweetest, here am I!' At which soft ravishment, with doting cry They trembled to each other.—Helicon! O fountain'd hill! Old Homer's Helicon! That thou wouldst spout a little streamlet o'er These sorry pages: then the verse would soar And sing above this gentle pair, like lark Over his nested young: but all is dark Around thine aged top, and thy clear fount Exhales in mists to heaven. Aye, the count Of mighty poets is made up; the scroll Is folded by the Muses; the bright roll Is in Apollo's hand: our dazed eyes Have seen a new tinge in the western skies: