All is cold Beauty; pain is never done:
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The Real of Beauty, free from that dead
hue

Sickly imagination and sick pride Cast wan upon it! Burns! with honour due

I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow, hide

Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

II

TO AILSA ROCK

The tourists crossed to Ireland for a short trip, and after returning to Scotland, made their way into Ayrshire, entering it a little beyond Cairn. Their walk led them into a long wooded glen. At the end,' writes Keats, July 10, 1818, 'we had a gradual ascent and got among the tops of the mountains whence in a little time I descried in the Sea Ailsa Rock, 940 feet high-it was 15 Miles distant and seemed close upon us. The effect of Ailsa with the peculiar perspective of the Sea in connection with the ground we stood on, and the misty rain then falling gave me a complete Idea of a deluge. Ailsa struck me very suddenly really I was a little alarmed.'

HEARKEN, thou craggy ocean pyramid ! Give answer from thy voice, the seafowls' screams!

When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?

When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ?

How long is 't since the mighty power bid Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?

Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams, Or when gray clouds are thy cold coverlid. Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep;

Thy life is but two dead eternities The last in air, the former in the deep; First with the whales, last with the eagleskies

Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep,

Another cannot wake thy giant size.

III

'WRITTEN IN THE COTTAGE WHERE BURNS WAS BORN

-

From Kingswell's, July 13, 1818, Keats wrote of his experience in visiting Burns's birthplace: The approach to it [Ayr] is extremely fine quite outwent my expectations - richly meadowed, wooded, heathed and rivuleted with a grand Sea view terminated by the black Mountains of the isle of Annan. As soon as I saw them so nearby I said to myself, "How is it they did not beckon Burns to some grand attempt at Epic ?" The bonny Doon is the sweetest river I ever saw-overhung with fine trees as far as we could see - We stood some time on the Brig across it, over which Tam o' Shanter fled we took a pinch of snuff on the Keystone - then we proceeded to the "auld Kirk Alloway." As we were looking at it a Farmer pointed the spots where Mungo's Mither hang'd hersel' and "drunken Charlie brake 's neck's bane." Then we proceeded to the Cottage he was born in there was a board to that effect by the door side - it had the same effect as the same sort of memorial at Stratford on Avon. We drank some Toddy to Burns's memory with an old Man who knew Burns- damn him and damn his anecdotes - he was a great bore it was impossible for a Southron to understand above 5 words in a hundred. There was something good in his description of Burns's melancholy the last time he saw him. I was determined to write a sonnet in the Cottage I did but it was so bad I cannot venture it here.' He wrote in the same strain to Reynolds, saying, 'I wrote a sonnet for the mere sake of writing some lines under the Roof they are so bad I cannot transcribe them. . . I cannot write about scenery and visitings Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable reality, but it is greater than remembrance. ... One song of Burns's is of more worth to you than all I could think for a whole year in his native country.'

The verses which follow were first printed in Life, Letters and Literary Remains. They occur in a letter to Tom Keats from Oban, July 26, 1818, and were preceded by this description: 'I am puzzled how to give you an Idea of Staffa. It can only be represented by a first-rate drawing. One may compare the surface of the Island to a roof - this roof is supported by grand pillars of basalt standing together as thick as honeycombs. The finest thing is Fingal's cave- it is entirely a hollowing out of Basalt Pillars. Suppose now the Giants who rebelled against Jove had taken a whole Mass of black Columns and bound them together like bunches of matches and then with immense axes had made a cavern in the body of these columns - Of course the roof and floor must be composed of the broken ends of the Columns - such is Fingal's cave, except that the Sea has done the work of excavations, and is continually dashing there - - so that we walk along the sides of the cave on the pillars which are left as if for convenient stairs. The

roof is arched somewhat gothic-wise, and the length of some of the entire side-pillars is fifty feet. About the island you might seat an army of men each on a pillar. The length of the Cave is 120 feet, and from its extremity the view into the sea, through the large arch at the entrance the colour of the column is a sort of black with a lurking gloom of purple therein. For solemnity and grandeur it far surpasses the finest Cathedral. At the extremity of the Cave there is a small perforation into another Cave, at which the waters meeting and buffeting each other there is sometimes produced a report as of a cannon heard as far as Iona, which must be 12 miles. As we approached in the boat, there was such a fine swell of the sea that the pillars appeared rising immediately out of the crystal. But it is impossible to describe it.'

NOT Aladdin magian
Ever such a work began;
Not the wizard of the Dee
Ever such a dream could see;
Not St. John, in Patmos' isle,
In the passion of his toil,
When he saw the churches seven,
Golden aisled, built up in heaven,
Gazed at such a rugged wonder,
As I stood its roofing under.
Lo! I saw one sleeping there,
On the marble cold and bare;
While the surges wash'd his feet,
And his garments white did beat
Drench'd about the sombre rocks;
On his neck his well-grown locks,
Lifted dry above the main,
Were upon the curl again.
'What is this? and what art thou?'
Whisper'd I, and touch'd his brow;
'What art thou? and what is this?"
Whisper'd I, and strove to kiss
The spirit's hand, to wake his eyes;
Up he started in a trice:

Hollow organs all the day;
Here, by turns, his dolphins all,
Finny palmers, great and small,
Come to pay devotion due,
Each a mouth of pearls must strew!
Many a mortal of these days
Dares to pass our sacred ways;
Dares to touch, audaciously,
This cathedral of the sea!
I have been the pontiff-priest,
Where the waters never rest,
Where a fledgy sea-bird choir
Soars for ever! Holy fire
I have hid from mortal man;
Proteus is my Sacristan!

But the dulled eye of mortal

Hath pass'd beyond the rocky portal;
So for ever will I leave

Such a taint, and soon unweave
All the magic of the place.'
So saying, with a Spirit's glance
He dived!

TRANSLATION FROM A SONNET

OF RONSARD

Published in Life, Letters and Literary Remains in a letter to Reynolds, of which the probable date is September 22, 1818; in a letter to Charles Wentworth Dilke September 21, 1818, Keats quotes the last line with the remark: You have passed your Romance, and I never gave in to it, or else I think this line a feast for one of your Lovers.' The text of the sonnet will be found in the Appendix.

NATURE withheld Cassandra in the skies, For more adornment, a full thousand

TIME's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb,

Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand,

Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, And snared by the ungloving of thine hand.

And yet I never look on midnight sky, But I behold thine eyes' well-memoried light;

I cannot look upon the rose's dye,

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight;

I cannot look on any budding flower,
But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips
And hearkening for a love-sound, doth de-

Keats enclosed these lines, as lately written, in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, January 2, 1819. He included the poem in the 1820 volume. Mr. John Knowles Paine has published a cantata for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra, entitled The Realm of Fancy, using these lines for his book.

EVER let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander

Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,

Fancy, high-commission'd: - send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

20

30

her:

Open wide the mind's cage-door,

She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy ! let her loose; Summer's joys are spoilt by use, And the enjoying of the Spring Fades as does its blossoming; Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, Blushing through the mist and dew, Cloys with tasting: What do then?

10

And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;

60

Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; Every thing is spoilt by use; Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind: Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter Ere the God of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe's, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down

Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

70

80

With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wond'rous
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;

Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!

SONG

10

20

30

40

There is just room, see, in this page to copy a little thing I wrote off to some Music as it was playing.' Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, January 2, 1819.

I HAD a dove and the sweet dove died; And I have thought it died of grieving: