And, by the wandering melody, may trace Which way the tender-legged linnet hops. Oh! what a power has white simplicity ! What mighty power has this gentle story! I, that do ever feel athirst for glory, Could at this moment be content to lie

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings

Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES

This and the following sonnet were printed in The Examiner, March 9, 1817, and reprinted in Life, Letters and Literary Remains.

My spirit is too weak — mortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,

And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky. Yet 't is a gentle luxury to weep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,

Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceivèd glories of the brain Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;

So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude

Wasting of old Time with a billowy

main

A sun—a shadow of a magnitude.

TO HAYDON

(WITH THE PRECEDING SONNET) HAYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things; Forgive me, that I have not Eagle's wings

That what I want I know not where to seek:

This stood as dedication to the 1817 volume, which was published in the month of March. Charles Cowden Clarke makes the statement: 'On the evening when the last proof sheet was brought from the printer, it was accompanied by the information that if a "dedication to the book was intended, it must be sent forthwith." Whereupon he withdrew to a side table, and in the buzz of a mixed conversation (for there were several friends in the room) he composed and brought to Charles Ollier, the publisher, the dedication sonnet to Leigh Hunt.'

GLORY and loveliness have pass'd away;
For if we wander out in early morn,
No wreathed incense do we see upborne
Into the east, to meet the smiling day:
No crowd of nymphs soft-voic'd and young,

and gay,

In woven baskets bringing ears of corn, Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn The shrine of Flora in her early May. But there are left delights as high as these, And I shall ever bless my destiny, That in a time, when under pleasant trees Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free, A leafy luxury, seeing I could please With these poor offerings, a man like thee.

ON THE SEA

Sent in a letter to Reynolds, dated April 17, 1817. From want of regular rest,' Keats says, 'I have been rather narvus, and the passage in Lear"Do you not hear the sea?" has haunted me intensely.' He then copies the sonnet, which was published in The Champion, August 17 of the same year. The letter was written from Carisbrooke. He had been sent away from London by his brothers a month before, shortly after the appearance of his first volume of Poems, and his letters show the nervous, restless condition into which he had been driven by that venture.

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell

Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell

Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.

Often 't is in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell Be mov'd for days from where it some

for I

- whether it existed before or not have the same idea of all our passions as of Love they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty. In a word, you may know my favourite speculation by my first Book, and the little Song I sent in my last, which is a representation from the fancy of the probable mode of operating in these matters.'

UNFELT, unheard, unseen,
I've left my little queen,

Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,

Who who could tell how much There is for madness-cruel, or complying?

Those faery lids how sleek!

Those lips how moist !- they speak, In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds: Into my fancy's ear

Melting a burden dear,

How 'Love doth know no fulness, and no bounds.'

True!-tender monitors!

I bend unto your laws:

This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,

I'll feel my heaven anew,
For all the blushing of the hasty morn.

ON

Published with the date 1817 by Lord Houghton in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, but slightly varied in form when reprinted in the Aldine edition.

THINK not of it, sweet one, so;

Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any-any where.

Do not look so sad, sweet one,

Sad and fadingly;

Shed one drop, then it is gone, Oh! 't was born to die!

Still so pale? then dearest weep;

Weep, I'll count the tears, For each will I invent a bliss For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are more tender still.

Yet as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses;
E'en let us too; but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER

This sonnet was printed in 1829 in The Gem, a Literary Annual, edited by Thomas Hood. It is not dated, but may fairly be assigned to this time.

COME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light

Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see,

Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea: 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips

For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.

O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile:

He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!

ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, 'THE STORY OF RIMINI'

Dated 1817 in the Life, Letters and Literary Remains, and placed next after the preceding.