Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 3
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

30

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

1 of southern France, the home of the troubadours 2 a fountain of the Muses on Mt. Helicon

3 The sources of Keats's classical knowledge are interesting. The suggestion for this particular metaphor came, doubtless, from Titian's painting of Ariadne (with Bacchus and his leopards) which was brought to England in 1806, and of which Keats must at least have seen a print, for he describes it in his "Sleep and Poetry," line 335. The painting was put in the National Gallery

in 1826

3

She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that ofttimes hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn. 70

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.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hillside; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades.

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:-do I wake or sleep?

1819

1820

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not
leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

20

LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 1

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Dressed as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day
Mine host's signboard flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill

To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,

Underneath a new old sign

10

Sipping beverage divine,

20

But were there ever any

Writhed not at passèd joy? To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it,

Nor numbèd sense to steel it,

Was never said in rime. c. 1811

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 3

Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woebegone?
The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth, too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful-a faëry's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw, all day long.
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faëry's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said, "I love thee true."

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept, and sighed full sore; And there I shut her wild, wild eyes With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

24

1829

16

24

32

And there I dreamed, ah, woe betide! "The Fair Lady without Pity." Cf. "The Eve of St. Agnes," st. 33. Keats obtained the title from an old French poem, a translation of which was once attributed to Chaucer. There are two versions of Keats's poem, but the second is hardly an improvement over the first, which is the more familiar, and which is given here." The reply of the knight begins at the fourth stanza. The story has some resemblance to that of Tannhäuser and the Venusberg.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S
1
HOMER 1

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET 2
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown
mead;

That is the Grasshopper's-he takes the lead
In summer luxury-he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening when the frost

1 This sonnet of discovery was written after Keats had spent a night with a friend reading in Chapman's translation of Homer. Keats could not read Greek, and had to content himself mainly with "western islands" of poetry and romance. It should be noted that it was not Cortez, but Balboa, who discovered the Pacific.

2 Written in a friendly competition with Leigh Hunt; see Hunt's sonnet, p. 537.

3

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES 3 My spirit is too weak-mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined 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-conceivèd 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 mainA sun-a shadow of a magnitude.

1817

ON THE SEA

1817

It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy

sound.

Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from where it sometime

fell,

When last the winds of heaven were unbound. O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and

tired,

Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
O ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar
rude,

Or fed too much with cloying melody-
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs choired!

1817

1817

WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY
CEASE TO BE

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace

These marbles are mainly sculptures from the Parthenon which were transferred from Athens to London by Lord Elgin in 1803.

the moon