XII.

ON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS AT AN EARLY HOUR.*

IVE me a golden pen, and let me lean

GIVE

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 discovered 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!
'Tis not content so soon to be alone.

XIII.

ADDRESSED TO HAYDON.†

TIGHMINDEDNESS, a jealousy for good,

H

A loving-kindness for the great man's fame,
Dwells here and there with people of no name,

In noisome alley, and in pathless wood:

66

And where we think the truth least understood,
Oft may be found a singleness of aim,"
That ought to frighten into hooded shame
A money-mong'ring, pitiable brood.
How glorious this affection for the cause
Of stedfast genius, toiling gallantly!

This sonnet also belongs to the Cottage in the Vale of Health, as we are led to infer from Clarke's mention of it in connexion with No. IX. and No. XV.

+ Benjamin Robert Haydon, historical painter, was born on the 26th of January 1786, and died by his own hand on the 22nd of June 1846.

What when a stout unbending champion awes
Envy, and Malice to their native sty?
Unnumber'd souls breathe out a still applause,
Proud to behold him in his country's eye.

GR

XIV.

ADDRESSED TO THE SAME.*

REAT spirits now on earth are sojourning;
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,

The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:
And lo! whose stedfastness would never take

A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;

These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum

Of mighty workings ?

Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.

XV.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.†

HE poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's - he takes the lead

In Tom Keats's copy-book this Sonnet is headed simply " Sonnet" and is dated 1816 merely. There are no variations. It is almost superfluous to identify the two men referred to in the first six lines - Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt.

+ Clarke records that this sonnet was written at Leigh Hunt's cottage, on a challenge from Hunt. See Clarke's account in his Recollections of Keats; and see

In summer luxury, he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

DECEMBER 30, 1816.

Go

XVI.

TO KOSCIUSKO.*

'OOD Kosciusko, thy great name alone
Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;
It comes upon us like the glorious pealing

Of the wide spheres - an everlasting tone.
And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown,

The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing,
And changed to harmonies, for ever stealing
Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.
It tells me too, that on a happy day,

When some good spirit walks upon the earth,

Thy name with Alfred's and the great of yore
Gently commingling, gives tremendous birth
To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away

To where the great God lives for evermore.

Appendix for Hunt's Sonnet. Both Sonnets appeared together in The Examiner for the 21st of September 1817; but Keats's volume had already appeared in June of that year.

*This sonnet was published in The Examiner for the 16th of February 1817. The punctuation differs slightly from that of the 1817 volume; and in the eighth line we read around for and round. The date" Dec. 1816" and the initials "J.K." appear under the sonnet in The Examiner.

XVII.

[APPY is England! I could be content

HA

To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown

Through its tall woods with high romances blent
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment

For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,

And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,

Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see

Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters.

WHAT

SLEEP AND POETRY.

"As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete
Was unto me, but why that I ne might
Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight
[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese
Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese."

CHAUCER.

THAT is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than the pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,

And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing
In a green island, far from all men's knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?
More serene than Cordelia's countenance?
More full of visions than a high romance?

What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes!
Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!
Silent entangler of a beauty's tresses!

Most happy listener! when the morning blesses
Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes

That glance so brightly at the new sun-rise.

But what is higher beyond thought than thee?
Fresher than berries of a mountain tree?

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More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, more regal,
Than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-seen eagle?
What is it? And to what shall I compare it?

It has a glory, and nought else can share it :
The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy,
Chasing away all worldliness and folly;

Hunt (see Appendix) pronounces this the best poem in the book, with his usual

excellent critical perception.

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