Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch, 250 As pale it lay upon the rosy couch: 'T was icy, and the cold ran through his veins; Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart. 'Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou start? Know'st thou that man ?' Poor Lamia answer'd not. He gazed into her eyes, and not a jot Own'd they the lovelorn piteous appeal: More, more he gazed: his human senses reel: Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs: There was no recognition in those orbs. 260 'Lamia!' he cried and no soft-toned reply. Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn, In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright Of conscience, for their long - offended might, For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries, Unlawful magic, and enticing lies. Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch ! Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see! My sweet bride withers at their potency.' 290 'Fool!' said the sophist, in an under-tone Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost, He sank supine beside the aching ghost. 'Fool! Fool!' repeated he, while his eyes still OTHO THE GREAT A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS DRAMAS When Keats went to the Isle of Wight in the early summer of 1819, it was with the determination to make his literary powers yield him a support, and the theatre, which he knew well, offered the surest means, in his judgment, for an immediate return. There was, indeed, something of a literary revival of the drama at this time, and Keats had often discussed with his friends the merits of plays then before the public, and especially the character of Kean's acting. They were rather skeptical of Keats's ability to produce a successful play, and their doubts had some good basis, if we may judge from the account which Charles Armitage Brown gives of Keats's mode of composition. Lord Houghton quotes the following from a manuscript by Brown, who was Keats's companion at Shanklin: At Shanklin he undertook a difficult task: I engaged to furnish him with the title, characters and dramatic conduct of a tragedy, and he was to enwrap it in poetry. The progress of this work was curious, for while I sat opposite to him, he caught my description of each scene entire, with the characters to be brought forward, the events, and everything connected with it. Thus he went on, scene after scene, never knowing nor enquiring into the scene which was to follow, until four acts were completed. It was then he required to know at once all the events that were to occupy the fifth act; I explained them to him, but, after a patient hearing and some thought, he insisted that many incidents in it were too humorous, or, as he termed them, too melodramatic. He wrote the fifth act in accordance with his own views, and so contented was I with his poetry that at the time, and for a long time after, I thought he was in the right.' Keats himself says little of the tragedy, exeept as a piece of work solely designed for pro fit. Brown and I,' he writes to John Taylor, his publisher, 'have together been engaged (this I should wish to remain secret) on a Tragedy which I have just finished and from which we hope to share moderate profits. . . . I feel every confidence that, if I choose, I may be a popular writer. That I will never be ; but for all that I will get a livelihood.' He wrote shortly after to the same friend: Brown likes the tragedy very much. But he is not a fit judge of it, as I have only acted as midwife to his plot; and of course he will be fond of his child.' The money to be got from the tragedy was uppermost in his mind when he wrote to his brother George, who shared his pecuniary difficulties: 'We are certainly in a very low estate-I say we, for I am in such a situation, that were it not for the assistance of Brown and Taylor, I must. be as badly off as a man can be. I could not raise any sum by the promise of any poem, no, not by the mortgage of my intellect. We must wait a little while. I really have hopes of success. I have finished a tragedy, which if it succeeds will enable me to sell what I may have in manuscript to a good advantage. I have passed my time in reading, writing, and fretting the last I intend to give up, and stick to the other two. They are the only chances of benefit to us. Take matters as coolly as you can; and confidently expecting help from England, act as if no help were nigh. Mine, I am sure, is a tolerable tragedy; it would have been a bank to me, if just as I had finished it, I had not heard of Kean's resolution to go to America. That was the worst news I could have had. There is no actor can do the principal character besides Kean. At Covent Garden there is a great chance of its being damn'd. Were it to succeed even there it would lift me out of the mire; I mean the mire of a bad reputation which is continually rising against me. My name with the literary fashionables is vulgar. I am a weaver-boy to them. A tragedy would |