Page images
PDF
EPUB

TWO SONNETS.

I.

To Haydon, with a Sonnet written on seeing the Elgin Marbles.

HAYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively on these mighty things;

Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings-
That what I want I know not where to seek :
And think that I would not be over meek

In rolling out upfollow'd thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, Were I of ample strength for such a freakThink too, that all those numbers should be thine; Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?

In regard to this subject it will be remembered that Haydon had been most energetic in preaching the gospel of the Elgin Marbles, and that his friends claimed for him the distinction of being the first to apply to modern art the "principles" of those immortal works. These two sonnets appeared in The Examiner for the 9th of March 1817, signed "J. K."; but this did not prevent Mr. James Elmes from letting them do duty for "Original Poetry" in his Annals of the Fine Arts, where they re-appeared in No. 8 (that, seemingly, for April 1818), with the full signature "John Keats." A comparison of the two versions leads me to the supposition that the Annals merely reprinted "copy" cut from The Examiner, with slight typographical laxity: I do not trace two manuscripts. Lord Houghton transposes the two sonnets, and alters the headings accordingly, reading indescribable for undescribable in line 10 of the

For when men star'd at what was most divine
With browless idiotism-o'erwise phlegm-
Thou hadst beheld the Hesperean shine

Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.

II.

On seeing the Elgin Marbles.

My

Y 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 'tis 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-conceived glories of the brain

Bring round the heart an undescribable 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.

sonnet on the Marbles, and giving lines 12 and 13 of the other thus

With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm,

Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine...

Both the versions published in Keats's life-time read as in the text, except that Elmes has Hesperian with an i, probably not noting that the accent was to be read on the third syllable-Hesperèan.

SONNET.

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER.

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:

This sonnet appeared in the year 1829 both in The Gem, a Literary Annual, edited by Thomas Hood, and in Galignani's edition of Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge. In the same volume of The Gem wherein Hood inserted this sonnet, he also published his own punning verses On a Picture of Hero and Leander,—

Why, Lover, why

Such a Water-rover?

Would she love thee more

For coming half seas over? &c.

I doubt whether so real an admirer and in some senses disciple of Keats as Hood was would have thought it in good taste to invite a comparison between the flimsy cleverness of these verses and the heart-felt beauty of the sonnet; and I should explain to myself as an editorial exigency the not over fortunate juxtaposition. Thus, the editor of The Gem finds himself in possession of a lovely sonnet on a picture, and obtains an engraving of Hero and Leander to insert with it when the engraving comes, it turns out to representnot the death of Leander, but his successful landing and reception by Hero, with Cupid fluttering above, torch in hand, and Hero's

'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!

attendant on the stone staircase leading up to the Sestian Temple. The editor cannot sacrifice one of his principal gems by casting out the sonnet: the publishers cannot sacrifice their costly steel plate; but fortunately the editor can write to any text or any plate; and the result is "Why, Lover, why," facing "Hero and Leander " painted by H. Howard, R.A., and engraved by F. Engleheart,verses and print corresponding in every detail,-except of course that the print is meant for serious and the verses are not. Save for some such explanation, we could hardly acquit Hood of the imputation of making fun of Keats's sonnet.

[blocks in formation]

Given by Lord Houghton among the Literary Remains in Volume II of the Life, Letters &c. (1848), with the date 1817. Hitherto this poem has been headed "On . . . ."; but it is so distinctly an address that To seems to be the right preposition. It is not stated to whom the verses are addressed. In Woodhouse's interleaved copy of Endymion is a transcript evidently made from a working draft. Woodhouse has copied in his careful and minute way the whole manuscript with its erasures, the first of which is a cancelled opening quatrain :

-

Think not of it gentle sweet

It is not worth a tear

Will thine heart less warmly beat

Thy voice less clear?

Stanza 2 appears to have been originally written with the two final lines,

« PreviousContinue »