LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY THE fountains mingle with the river, The winds of heaven mix forever Nothing in the world is single; In one another's being mingle — See, the mountains kiss high heaven, 10 15 5 JOHN KEATS 1795-1821 KEATS was born of humble parentage in London. After a few years' schooling he was apprenticed to a surgeon. He worked for a while in the hospitals of London, but his sensitive nature recoiled from such scenes. Moreover, his poetic faculties were awakened by Spenser's Faerie Queene, which has quickened the imagination and fired the ambition of so many poets. He now set to work in earnest to write verse. His education had been scant, but he supplemented it by wide reading, especially in translations of the Greek and Roman classics. His first long poem, Endymion, was harshly criticised by the reviewers; but he again worked with greater determination. When Hyperion appeared it was recognized that a new poet of brilliant powers had arisen. These two works, together with the shorter poems, The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, and the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, gave promise of far greater things. But this promise was not fulfilled. Keats died of consumption at Rome in the twenty-sixth year of his age. Keats's poetry shows a profound love of beauty in all its forms, an imagination of very high order, a gift for melodious expression, and an intense love for everything that appeals to the senses. He loved shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound." On the other hand, the political, social, and religious controversies of the day, with all their clash of opinion, seem to have passed over his head. If he heard them, he did not heed. His whole soul was filled with the old Greek love of beauty for beauty's sake. His range therefore is, according to modern standards, somewhat narrow, but within this range he has a place that is high and ⚫ secure. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth! Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 5 10 15 20 25 30 Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 35 Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a muséd rime, To take into the air my quiet breath; 45 50 Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55 To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain 60 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 65 70 Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: - do I wake or sleep? 80 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne : 5 |