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POSTHUMOUS

AND

FUGITIVE POEMS.

[In this section are given under one chronology the whole of Keats's poetical writings not included in the three volumes which he issued himself. Some of the following pieces were published during his life-time in The Examiner, or elsewhere, as indicated in the foot-notes; but the great mass are strictly posthumous works, for which the world is indebted to the editorship of Lord Houghton. It is not unlikely that other pieces by Keats may yet be found; for he wrote much commonplace verse when a boy; and I have reason to think that a good deal of it still exists; but it is questionable whether anything of true and sterling value still remains to be discovered.-H. B. F.]

POSTHUMOUS AND FUGITIVE

POEMS.

ON DEATH.

I.

CAN death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.

2.

How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.

George Keats assigns these stanzas to the year 1814. Their only interest is in the somewhat thoughtful vein they display for a youth of Keats's age at that time-eighteen or nineteen years. I am not aware that the stanzas have been printed before.

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SONNET.

TO BYRON.

BYRON! how sweetly sad thy melody!
Attuning still the soul to tenderness,
As if soft Pity, with unusual stress,

Had touch'd her plaintive lute, and thou, being by,
Hadst caught the tones, nor suffer'd them to die.
O'ershadowing sorrow doth not make thee less
Delightful thou thy griefs dost dress

With a bright halo, shining beamily,
As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil,
Its sides are ting'd with a resplendent glow,
Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail,

And like fair veins in sable marble flow;
Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale,

The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe.

First given in the Life, Letters &c. (1848), Volume I, page 13, under the date December 1814. I know of no authority for inserting the word ever in the seventh line; but it seems highly probable that we should read thou thy griefs dost ever dress, and that the word was dropped accidentally in transcription.

SONNET.

TO CHATTERTON.

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CHATTERTON! how very sad thy fate! Dear child of sorrow-son of misery!

How soon the film of death obscur'd that eye, Whence Genius mildly flash'd, and high debate. How soon that voice, majestic and elate,

Melted in dying numbers! Oh! how nigh Was night to thy fair morning. Thou didst die A half-blown flow'ret which cold blasts amate. But this is past: thou art among the stars

Of highest Heaven: to the rolling spheres
Thou sweetly singest: nought thy hymning mars,
Above the ingrate world and human fears.

On earth the good man base detraction bars
From thy fair name, and waters it with tears.

This sonnet also was first given in the Life, Letters &c. in 1848.

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