But the rose leaves herself upon the briar,
For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed,
And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire,
The undisturbed lake has crystal space,

Why then should man, teazing the world for grace,
Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

SONNET TO SLEEP.*

SOFT embalmer of the still midnight,

Shutting with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine :

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,

In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,

* This sonnet was first given by Lord Houghton among the Literary Remains in 1848. Keats appears to have drafted twelve lines of it in the copy of Milton's Paradise Lost which he annotated and gave to Mr. and Mrs. Dilke; and there is a complete fair manuscript dated 1819 in Sir Charles Dilke's copy of Endymion. The text as given above accords entirely with the fair manuscript, save that I have adopted Lord Houghton's reading lulling for dewy in line 8, as probably from another and later manuscript. The draft, which was published in The Athenæum for the 26th of October 1872, reads finally thus (I transcribe directly from the manuscript):

O soft embalmer of the still Midnight

Shutting with careful fingers and benign

Our gloom pleas'd eyes embowered from the light
As wearisome as darkness is divine

O soothest sleep, if so it please thee close

My willing eyes in midst of this thine hymn

Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws

And turn the key round in the oiled wards
And let it rest until the morn has stole,

Bright tressed From the grey east's shuddering bourn...

There is a cancelled opening for line 4, Of sun or teasing candles; in line 6 Mine has been but imperfectly altered to My; in line 11 the words has stole are struck through, but without anything being substituted for them; and of line 12 there is an incomplete cancelled reading

From the west's shuddering bourn...

Though the manuscript is a little blotty there is but one word about which there is any doubt, namely the compound sweet-death; and I have no serious doubt as to that; but literally it looks like sweet-dath, the a however having the appearance of an e and an a run together. The hyphen between sweet and death should perhaps be between death and dews; and in line II of the text the word lords should probably be hoards, from which Keats would not have been unlikely to drop the a.

That

Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

A PARTY OF LOVERS.*

Nibble their toast, and cool their tea with sighs,
Or else forget the purpose of the night,

Forget their tea

-

forget their appetite.

See with cross'd arms they sit ah! happy crew,
The fire is going out and no one rings

For coals, and therefore no coals Betty brings.
A fly is in the milk-pot- must he die

By a humane society?

No, no; there Mr. Werter takes his spoon,
Inserts it, dips the handle, and lo! soon
The little straggler, sav'd from perils dark,
Across the teaboard draws a long wet mark.

Arise! take snuffers by the handle,
There's a large cauliflower in each candle.

5

IO

15

he did not add the final two lines to the draft is a great loss to students of his way of work; for this is one of the most notable instances of a good draft being converted into a far better poem. The transposition and transplantation of lines 9 and 10 of the draft, so as to bring the hushed casket of the soul to the end, was a master-stroke of the highest poetic instinct.

*This is one of the many varieties of the Winchester journal-letter of September 1819, as published in the New York World of the 25th of June 1877. Keats characterizes the jeu d'esprit as a few nonsense verses." They were probably written on the 17th of September; and they illustrated the following passage in the journalletter:

"Nothing strikes me so forcibly with a sense of the ridiculous as love. A man in love I do think cuts the sorriest figure in the world. Even when I know a poor fool to be really in pain about it I could burst out laughing in his face. His pathetic visage becomes irresistible. Not that I take H. as a pattern for lovers; he is a very worthy man and a good friend. His love is very amusing. Somewhere in the Spectator is related an account of a man inviting a party of stutterers and squinters to his table. It would please me more to scrape together a party of lovers; not to dinner -no, to tea. There would be no fighting as among knights of old."

A winding-sheet, ah me! I must away
To No. 7, just beyond the circus gay.

Alas, my friend! your coat sits very well;
Where may your tailor live?' I may not tell.
O pardon me — - I'm absent now and then.
Where might my tailor live? I say again

I cannot tell, let me no more be teaz'd

He lives in Wapping, might live where he pleas'd.'

20

SONNET.*

is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

THE day woge, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,
Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise
Vanish'd unseasonably at shut of eve,
When the dusk holiday - or holinight

Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;
But, as I've read love's missal through to-day,
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

LINES TO FANNY.†

HAT can I do to drive away

WHAT

Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,
Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!

Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,

(19) In The World we read Taylor, with a capital T, both here and in line 21, as if Keats were thinking of his publisher; but I doubt whether that pleasantry was intentional, because I cannot see any point or meaning in it; and I think Keats was quite capable of spelling the common noun tailor in that fashion without any arrière pensée.

*This sonnet was first given among the Literary Remains in 1848, with the date 1819. There is a letter to Miss Brawne posted on the 11th of October at Westminster, which corresponds with the sonnet in subject; so that this poem may very well belong to the roth of October 1819.

†These lines, first given in the Life, Letters &c., were there dated October 1819;

How shall I do

To get anew

Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more
Above, above

The reach of fluttering Love,

And make him cower lowly while I soar?

Shall I gulp wine? No, that is vulgarism,

A heresy and schism,

Foisted into the canon law of love;

No, wine is only sweet to happy men;
More dismal cares

Seize on me unawares,

Where shall I learn to get my peace again?

To banish thoughts of that most hateful land,

30

Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked strand
Where they were wreck'd and live a wrecked life;
That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour,
Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore,
Unown'd of any weedy-haired gods;

35

and I should be disposed to assign them to the 12th of that month, the day before that on which Keats posted a letter at Westminster to Miss Brawne, saying inter alia that he has set himself to copy some verses out fair, and adding "I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time." The text appears to me to need revision in certain points; but I know of no authority for change. Thus, in line 3, the word and or but has probably dropped out after Aye. (33) Probably wrecked should be wretched. There seems a want of aptness in making use of wreck'd (monosyllable) and wrecked (dissyllable) in such sharp counterpoint; and Keats would be quite likely to write wreched without the t and thus leave the word easy to mistake for wrecked.

(35) I should think Even a likelier initial word here than Ever.

Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods,
Ic'd in the great lakes, to afflict mankind;
Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind,
Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh herbag'd meads
Make lean and lank the starv'd ox while he feeds;
There bad flowers have no scent, birds no sweet song,
And great unerring Nature once seems wrong.

40

with the new dawning light

Steps forth my lady bright!

O, let me once more rest

My soul upon that dazzling breast!

Let once again these aching arms be plac'd,

50

The tender gaolers of thy waist!

And let me feel that warm breath here and there

To spread a rapture in my very hair,

O, the sweetness of the pain!

Give me those lips again!

55

Enough! Enough! it is enough for me
To dream of thee!

SONNET TO FANNY.*

I CRY your mercy-pity love!aye, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmask'd, and being seen — without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole, - all — all — be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss, - those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourself - your soul—in pity give me all,

Withhold no atom's atom or I die,

Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,

First given among the Literary Remains in 1848, dated 1819. I have no data upon which to suggest the period more exactly; but the desperation of tone may perhaps indicate that the sonnet was composed late in the year.