Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/45

Rh ultimate triumph of freedom and equality by the power of transmitted knowledge.' No date is assigned, and the verse may as well be placed in the early period of Keats's acquaintance with Spenser and friendship with Leigh Hunt.

after-time, a sage of mickle lore

Yclep'd Typographus, the Giant took,

And did refit his limbs as heretofore,

And made him read in many a learned book,

And into many a lively legend look;

Thereby in goodly themes so training him,

That all his brutishness he quite forsook,

When, meeting Artegall and Talus grim,

The one he struck stone-blind, the other's eyes wox dim.

me a golden pen, and let me lean

On heap'd-up flowers, in regions clear and far;

Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,

Or hand of hymning angel, when 't is seen

The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:

And let there glide by many a pearly car,

Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,

And half-discover'd wings, and glances keen.

The while let music wander round my ears,

And as it reaches each delicious ending,

Let me write down a line of glorious tone,

And full of many wonders of the spheres:

For what a height my spirit is contending!

'T is not content so soon to be alone.

have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Mathew, who was of Keats's age, was his companion when he first went to London. The two had common tastes in literature and read together, and Mathew also made essays in writing, so that Keats, who was living much in Elizabethan literature at the time, might easily transfer in imagination some of the great deeds of partnership to himself and his friend. It is worth while to note Mathew's own recollection, thirty years later, of the contrast of him-