Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/172

136 —I long after a stanza or two of Thomson's Castle of Indolence—my passions are all asleep, from my having slumbered till nearly eleven, and weakened the animal fibre all over me, to a delightful sensation, about three degrees on this side of faintness. If I had teeth of pearl and the breath of lilies I should call it languor, but as I am I must call it laziness. In this state of effeminacy the fibres of the brain are relaxed in common with the rest of the body, and to such a happy degree that pleasure has no show of enticement and pain no unbearable power. Neither Poetry, nor Ambition, nor Love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me; they seem rather like figures on a Greek vase—a man and two women whom no one but myself could distinguish in their disguisement. This is the only happiness, and is a rare instance of the advantage of the body overpowering the Mind.'

morn before me were three figures seen,

With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;

And one behind the other stepp'd serene,

In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;

They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,

When shifted round to see the other side;

They came again; as when the urn once more

Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;

And they were strange to me, as may betide

With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?

How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?

Was it a silent deep-disguised plot

To steal away, and leave without a task

My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;

The blissful cloud of summer-indolence

Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;

Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower:

O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense

Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?

A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd

Each one the face a moment whiles to me;

Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd

And ached for wings, because I knew the three;

The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;

The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,

And ever watchful with fatigued eye;

The last, whom I love more, the more of blame

Is heap'd upon her, maiden most unmeek,—

I knew to be my demon Poesy.

They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:

O folly! What is Love? and where is it?

And for that poor Ambition! it springs

From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;

For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—

At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,

And evenings steep'd in honied indolence;

O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,

That I may never know how change the moons,

Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!