Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life so young Apollo anguish'd:
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.
Apollo shriek'd;
Celestial

At length
and lo! from all his limbs

THE END.

130

135

(136) Hunt says of this part of the fragment, "It strikes us that there is something too effeminate and human in the way in which Apollo receives the exaltation which his wisdom is giving him. He weeps and wonders somewhat too fondly; but his powers gather nobly on him as he proceeds." I confess that I should be disposed to rank all these symptoms of convulsion and hysteria in the same category as the fainting of lovers which Keats so frequently represented, a kind of thing which his astonishing powers of progress would infallibly have outgrown had he lived a year or two longer.

The imprint of the Lamia volume, which is in the centre of the verso of the last page, is as follows:

LONDON:

PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

HYPERION: A VISION.

[This remarkable production was mentioned by Lord Houghton in the Life, Letters &c. as a re-cast, but remained in manuscript until Lord Houghton contributed it to the third Volume of the Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society (1856-57), in doubt whether it was a re-cast or a draft. A few copies of it were also printed separately from the Miscellanies. The fragment was afterwards published in the Appendix to a new edition" of The Life and Letters of John Keats issued by his Lordship in 1867 through Messrs. Moxon and Co. On that occasion it was said to be without doubt the first draft. But Lord Houghton must have failed to consult his manuscript memoir by Charles Brown, wherein, as Mr. Colvin has stated, the Vision is distinctly said to be a late reconstruction. It will be seen that, although a great deal of the Vision is special thereto, there are large passages from the epic version of Hyperion. A comparison of passages which are substantially identical while varying in detail perhaps affords the most astounding instance on record of the loss of artistic power and perception under physical decay and mental agony. H. B. F.]

(339)

HYPERION, A VISION:

ATTEMPTED RECONSTRUCTION OF THE POEM.

ANATICS have their dreams, wherewith they weave

FA

A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,

From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep

Guesses at heaven; pity these have not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance,

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,
With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,

Thou art no Poet-may'st not tell thy dreams?”

Since every man whose soul is not a clod

Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved,
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.
Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be known

When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.

Methought I stood where trees of every clime,
Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,
With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen,
In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise
Soft-showering in mine ears), and (by the touch
Of scent) not far from roses. Twining round
I saw an arbour with a drooping roof
Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms,
Like floral censers, swinging light in air;
Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound
Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits,
Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal
By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

For empty shells were scatter'd on the grass,

And grapestalks but half-bare, and remnants more
Sweet-smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.
Still was more plenty than the fabled horn
Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting,
For Proserpine return'd to her own fields,
Where the white heifers low. And appetite,
More yearning than on earth I ever felt,
Growing within, I ate deliciously,
And, after not long, thirsted; for thereby
Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice

35

40

Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took,

And pledging all the mortals of the world,

And all the dead whose names are in our lips,

45

Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.
No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

Of the soon-fading, jealous, Caliphat,

No poison gender'd in close monkish cell,

50

To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,
Could so have rapt unwilling life away.

Among the fragrant husks and berries crush'd
Upon the grass, I struggled hard against
The domineering potion, but in vain.

The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sank,
Like a Silenus on an antique vase.
How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess.
When sense of life return'd, I started up
As if with wings, but the fair trees were gone,
The mossy mound and arbour were no more:
I look'd around upon the curved sides
Of an old sanctuary, with roof august,
Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds
Might spread beneath as o'er the stars of heaven.
So old the place was, I remember'd none
The like upon the earth: what I had seen

55

60

65

Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,

The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,
Seem'd but the faulture of decrepit things
To that eternal domed monument.

70

Upon the marble at my feet there lay

Store of strange vessels and large draperies,

Which needs have been of dyed asbestos wove,
Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,

75

So white the linen, so, in some, distinct