Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/268

232 'Jostling my way I gain'd the stairs, and ran

To the first landing, where, incredible!

I met, far gone in liquor, that old man,

That vile impostor Hum,'

So far so well,—

For we have proved the Mago never fell

Down stairs on Crafticanto's evidence;

And therefore duly shall proceed to tell,

Plain in our own original mood and tense,

The sequel of this day, though labour 't is immense!

star, would I were steadfast as thou art!

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores

Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors:

No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.