The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies. John Keats

      Seeing ‘The Stranger’ Played at Inverary

      Of late two dainties were before me plac’d

      Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent,

      From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent

      That Gods might know my own particular taste:

      First the soft Bagpipe moum’d with zealous haste,

      The Stranger next with head on bosom bent

      Sigh’d; rueful again the piteous Bagpipe went,

      Again the Stranger sighings fresh did waste.

      O Bagpipe thou didst steal my heart away -

      O Stranger thou my nerves from Pipe didst charm -

      O Bagpipe thou didst reassert thy sway -

      Again thou Stranger gav’st me fresh alarm -

      Alas! I could not choose. Ah! my poor heart.

      Mum chance art thou with both oblig’d to part.

      Oh! how I love, on a fair summer’s eve,

      When streams of light pour down the golden west,

      And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest

      The silver clouds, far – far away to leave

      All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve

      From little cares; to find, with easy quest,

      A fragrant wild, with Nature’s beauty drest,

      And there into delight my soul deceive.

      There warm my breast with patriotic lore,

      Musing on Milton’s fate – on Sydney’s bier -

      Till their stern forms before my mind arise:

      Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

      Full often dropping a delicious tear,

      When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

      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.

      Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,

      A forester deep in thy midmost trees,

      Did last eve ask my promise to refine

      Some English that might strive thine ear to please.

      But Elfin Poet ’tis impossible

      For an inhabitant of wintry earth

      To rise like Phoebus with a golden quell

      Firewing’d and make a morning in his mirth.

      It is impossible to escape from toil

      O’ the sudden and receive thy spiriting:

      The flower must drink the nature of the soil

      Before it can put forth its blossoming:

      Be with me in the summer days and I

      Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

      As from the darkening gloom a silver dove

      Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light,

      On pinions that naught moves but pure delight,

      So fled thy soul into the realms above,

      Regions of peace and everlasting love;

      Where happy spirits, crown’d with circlets bright

      Of starry beam, and gloriously bedight,

      Taste the high joy none but the blest can prove.

      There thou or joinest the immortal quire

      In melodies that even heaven fair

      Fill with superior bliss, or, at desire

      Of the omnipotent Father, cleavest the air

      On holy message sent – What pleasures higher?

      Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?

      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 mov’d for days from where it sometime fell,

      When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.

      Oh ye! who have your eyeballs vex’d and tir’d,

      Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;

      Oh ye! whose ears are dinn’d 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 quir’d!

      I cry your mercy – pity – love! – aye, love!

      Merciful love that tantalises not,

      One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

      Unmask’d, and being seen – without a blot!

      O! let me have thee whole, – all – all – be mine!

      That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

      Of love, your kiss, – those hands, those eyes divine,

      That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast, -

      Yourself – your soul – in pity give me all,

      Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,

      Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,

      Forget, in the mist of idle misery,

      Life’s purposes, – the palate of my

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