Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/46

10 self with Keats: 'Keats and I, though about the same age, and both inclined to literature, were in many respects as different as two individuals could be. He enjoyed good health—a fine flow of animal spirits—was fond of company—could amuse himself admirably with the frivolities of life—and had great confidence in himself. I, on the other hand, was languid and melancholy—fond of repose—thoughtful beyond my years—and diffident to the last degree.' The epistle is dated November, 1815, in the volume of 1817, where it is the first of a group of three epistles with the motto from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals:

 Among the rest a shepherd (though but young Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill His few yeeres could, began to fit his quill.

are the pleasures that to verse belong,

And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;

Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view

A fate more pleasing, a delight more true

Than that in which the brother Poets joy'd,

Who, with combinèd powers, their wit employ'd

To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.

The thought of this great partnership diffuses

Over the genius-loving heart, a feeling

Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.

Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee

Past each horizon of fine poesy;

Fain would I echo back each pleasant note

As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float

'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,

Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted.

But 't is impossible; far different cares

Beckon me sternly from soft 'Lydian airs,'

And hold my faculties so long in thrall,

That I am oft in doubt whether at all

I shall again see Phœbus in the morning:

Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning!

Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream;

Or a rapt seraph in a moonlight beam;

Or again witness what with thee I've seen,

The dew by fairy feet swept from the green,

After a night of some quaint jubilee

Which every elf and fay had come to see:

When bright processions took their airy march

Beneath the curvèd moon's triumphal arch.

But might I now each passing moment give

To the coy Muse, with me she would not live

In this dark city, nor would condescend

'Mid contradictions her delights to lend.

Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind,

Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find

Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic,

That often must have seen a poet frantic;

Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing,

And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing;

Where the dark-leav'd laburnum's drooping clusters

Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,

And intertwined the cassia's arms unite,

With its own drooping buds, but very white.

Where on one side are covert branches hung,

'Mong which the nightingales have always sung

In leafy quiet: where to pry, aloof

Atween the pillars of the sylvan roof,

Would be to find where violet beds were nestling,

And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling.

There must be too a ruin dark and gloomy,

To say 'Joy not too much in all that 's bloomy.'