BREAMA.

Me to the blooms,

Blue-ey'd Zephyr, of those flowers

Far in the west where the May-cloud lowers;

95

And the beams of still Vesper, when winds are all wist, Are shed thro' the rain and the milder mist,

And twilight your floating bowers.

100

TWO SONNETS ON FAME.

I.

FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy

To those who woo her with too slavish knees, But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy, And dotes the more upon a heart at ease; She is a Gipsey, will not speak to those

Who have not learnt to be content without her; A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close,

Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her; A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;

Ye love-sick Bards, repay her scorn for scorn,
Ye Artists lovelorn, madmen that ye are !
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

II.

"You cannot eat your cake and have it too.”—Proverb.

How fever'd is the man, who cannot look

Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book,

And robs his fair name of its maidenhood;

Both these sonnets were given among the Literary Remains in the Life, Letters &c., with the date 1819, which they also bear in the manuscript at the end of Sir Charles Dilke's copy of Endymion. This manuscript shows no variation beyond a few stops.

It is as if the rose should pluck herself,

Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom, As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,

Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom, But the rose leaves herself upon the briar,

For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed,

And the ripe plum stillwears its dim attire,

The undisturbed lake has crystal space,

Why then should man, teazing the world for grace, Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

SONNET.

TO SLEEP.

OSOFT

SOFT embalmer of the still midnight,

Shutting with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine :

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,-

This sonnet was first given by Lord Houghton among the Literary Remains in 1848. Keats appears to have drafted twelve lines of it in the copy of Milton's Paradise Lost which he annotated and gave to Mr. and Mrs. Dilke; and there is a complete fair manuscript dated 1819 in Sir Charles Dilke's copy of Endymion. The text as given above accords entirely with the fair manuscript, save that I have adopted Lord Houghton's reading lulling for dewy in line 8, as probably from another and later manuscript. The draft, which was published in The Athenæum for the 26th of October 1872, reads finally thus (I transcribe directly from the manuscript):

O soft embalmer of the still Midnight

Shutting with careful fingers and benign

Our gloom pleas'd eyes embowered from the light
As wearisome as darkness is divine

O soothest sleep, if so it please thee close

My willing eyes in midst of this thine hymn

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws

Its sweet-death dews o'er every pulse and limb—
Then shut the hushed Casket of my soul

And turn the key round in the oiled wards

And let it rest until the morn has stole,

Bright tressed From the grey east's shuddering bourn... There is a cancelled opening for line 4, Of sun or teasing candles; in line 6 Mine has been but imperfectly altered to My; in line 11 the words has stole are struck through, but without anything being substituted for them; and of line 12 there is an incomplete cancelled reading

From the west's shuddering bourn...

Though the manuscript is a little blotty there is but one word about which there is any doubt, namely the compound sweet-death; and I have no serious doubt as to that; but literally it looks like sweetdath, the a however having the appearance of an e and an a run together. The hyphen between sweet and death should perhaps be between death and dews; and in line 11 of the text the word lords should probably be hoards, from which Keats would not have been unlikely to drop the a. That he did not add the final two lines to the draft is a great loss to students of his way of work; for this is one of the most notable instances of a good draft being converted into a far better poem. The transposition and transplantation of lines 9 and 10 of the draft, so as to bring the hushed casket of the soul to the end, was a master-stroke of the highest poetic instinct.