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All the immortal fairness of his limbs ;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life : so young Apollo anguish'd :
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.-At length
Apollo shriek’d;—and lo! from all his limbs
Celestial

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135

THE END.

(136) Hunt says of this part of the fragment, “It strikes us that there is something too effeminate and human in the way in which Apollo receives the exaltation which his wisdom is giving him. He weeps and wonders somewhat too fondly; but his powers gather nobly on him as he proceeds.” I confess that I should be disposed to rank all these symptoms of convulsion and hysteria in the same category as the fainting of lovers which Keats so frequently represented,-a kind of thing which his astonishing powers of progress would infallibly have outgrown had he lived a year or two longer.

The imprint of the Lamia volume, which is in the centre of the verso of the last page, is as follows :

LONDON:

PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

HYPERION, A VISION:

THE FIRST VERSION OF THE POEM.

[This remarkable sketch for one of the most remarkable fragments ever produced by a man of equal years remained in manuscript until Lord Houghton contributed it to the third Volume of the Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society (1856-57). A few copies of this contribution were also printed separately from the Miscellanies. The fragment was afterwards published in the Appendix to “a new edition ” of The Life and Letters of John Keats issued by his Lordship in 1867 through Messrs. Moxon and Co. It will be seen that, although a great deal of the Vision is special thereto, there are large passages which recur in the later version of Hyperion. A comparison of passages which are substantially identical while varying in detail supports Keats's artistic reputation in the most notable manner.-H. B. F.]

HYPERION,

A VISION:

THE FIRST VERSION OF THE POEM.

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Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at heaven; pity these have not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance,
But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,-
With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain
And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,
“Thou art no Poet-may'st not tell thy dreams?”
Since every man whose soul is not a clod
Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved,
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.
Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be known
When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.

IO

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Methought I stood where trees of every clime,
Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,
With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen,

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