Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/44

8 Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.

No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press

Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless

By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.

Lo! who dares say, 'Do this?' Who dares call down

My will from its high purpose? Who say, 'Stand,'

Or 'Go?' This mighty moment I would frown

On abject Cæsars—not the stoutest band

Of mailèd heroes should tear off my crown:

Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!

many bards gild the lapses of time!

A few of them have ever been the food

Of my delighted fancy,—I could brood

Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:

And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,

These will in throngs before my mind intrude:

But no confusion, no disturbance rude

Do they occasion; 't is a pleasing chime.

So the unnumber'd sounds that evening store;

The songs of birds—the whisp'ring of the leaves—

The voice of waters—the great bell that heaves

With solemn sound,—and thousand others more,

That distance of recognizance bereaves,

Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there

Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;

The stars look very cold about the sky,

And I have many miles on foot to fare.

Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,

Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,

Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,

Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:

For I am brimful of the friendliness

That in a little cottage I have found;

Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress,

And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;

Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,

And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.

Given by Lord Houghton in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, who comments as follows: 'His sympathies were very much on the side of the revolutionary Giant, who "undertook for to repair" the "realms and nations run awry," and to suppress "tyrants that make men subject to their law," "and lordings curbe that commons over-aw," while he grudged the legitimate victory, as he rejected the conservative philosophy, of the "righteous Artegall" and his comrade, the fierce defender of privilege and order. And he expressed in this ex post facto prophecy, his conviction of the