Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/275

Rh And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;

Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,

And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.

Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the world,

If Queens and Soldiers have play'd deep for hearts,

It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I 'll say

That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

I 'll have my friar—let me think

About my room—I 'll have it in the pink;

It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,

Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,

Should look thro' four large windows and display

Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,

Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;

The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,

To see what else the moon alone can show;

While the night-breeze doth softly let us know

My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.

Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees

A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove

Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;

A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,

All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;

A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon

A glorious folio of Anacreon;

A skull upon a mat of roses lying,

Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying;

An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails

Of passion-flower;—just in time there sails

A cloud across the moon,—the lights bring in!

And see what more my phantasy can win.

It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;

The draperies are so, as tho' they had

Been made for Cleopatra's winding-sheet;

And opposite the stedfast eye doth meet

A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,

In letters raven-sombre, you may trace

Old 'Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin.'

Greek busts and statuary have ever been

Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far,

Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;

Therefore 't is sure a want of Attic taste

That I should rather love a Gothic waste

Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter's clay,

Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.

My table-coverlits of Jason's fleece

And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought,

Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.

My ebon sofas should delicious be

With down from Leda's cygnet progeny.

My pictures all Salvator's, save a few

Of Titian's portraiture, and one, though new,

Of Haydon's in its fresh magnificence.

My wine—O good! 't is here at my desire,

And I must sit to supper with my friar.

I one of the Olympian twelve,

Their godships should pass this into a law,—

That when a man doth set himself in toil

After some beauty veiled far away,

Each step he took should make his lady's hand

More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more fair;

And for each briar-berry he might eat,

A kiss should bud upon the tree of love,

And pulp and ripen richer every hour,

To melt away upon the traveller's lips.

sun, with his great eye,

Sees not so much as I;

And the moon, all silver-proud,

Might as well be in a cloud.

And O the spring—the spring!

I lead the life of a King!

Couch'd in the teeming grass,

I spy each pretty lass.

I look where no one dares,

And I stare where no one stares,

And when the night is nigh,

Lambs bleat my lullaby.