Discord unconfoundest, Giving Delight new joys, And Pleasure nobler pinions! O, where are thy dominions? Lend thine ear To a young Delian oath—aye, by thy soul, By all that from thy mortal lips did roll, And by the kernel of thine earthly love, Beauty, in things on earth, and things above, I swear! When every childish fashion Has vanish’d from my rhyme, Will I, gray-gone in passion, Leave to an after-time, Hymning and harmony Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life; But vain is now the burning and the strife, Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife With old Philosophy, And mad with glimpses of futurity! For many years my offering must be hush’d; When I do speak, I’ll think upon this hour, Because I feel my forehead hot and flush’d, Even at the simplest vassal of thy power— A lock of thy bright hair— Sudden it came, And I was startled, when I caught thy name Coupled so unaware; Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood. I thought I had beheld it from the flood.
This I did at Hunt’s at his request—perhaps I should have done something better alone and at home.—I have sent my first Book to the press, and this afternoon shall begin preparing the Second—my visit to you will be a great spur to quicken the proceeding.—I have not had your Sermon returned—I long to make it the Subject of a Letter to you—What do they say at Oxford?
I trust you and Gleig pass much fine time together. Remember me to him and Whitehead. My Brother Tom is getting stronger, but his spitting of Blood continues. I sat down to read King Lear yesterday, and felt the greatness of the thing up to the Writing of a Sonnet preparatory thereto—in my next you shall have it.—There were some miserable reports of Rice’s health—I went, and lo! Master Jemmy had been to the play the night before, and was out at the time—he always comes on his legs like a Cat. I have seen a good deal of Wordsworth. Hazlitt is lecturing on Poetry at the Surrey Institution—I shall be there next Tuesday.
Your most affectionate friend
John Keats.
XXXII.—TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead, January 30, 1818.]
My dear Taylor—These lines as they now stand about “happiness,” have rung in my ears like “a chime a mending”—See here,
“Behold
Wherein lies happiness, Peona? fold, etc.”
It appears to me the very contrary of blessed. I hope this will appear to you more eligible.
“Wherein lies Happiness? In that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with Essence till we shine
Full alchemised, and free of space—Behold
The clear religion of Heaven—fold, etc.”
You must indulge me by putting this in, for setting aside the badness of the other, such a preface is necessary to the subject. The whole thing must, I think, have appeared to you, who are a consecutive man, as a thing almost of mere words, but I assure you that, when I wrote it, it was a regular stepping of the Imagination towards a truth. My having written that argument will perhaps be of the greatest service to me of anything I ever did. It set before me the gradations of happiness, even like a kind of pleasure thermometer, and is my first step towards the chief attempt in the drama. The playing of different natures with joy and Sorrow—Do me this favour, and believe me
Your sincere friend
J. Keats.
I hope your next work will be of a more general Interest. I suppose you cogitate a little about it, now and then.
XXXIII.—TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Hampstead, Saturday [January 31, 1818].
My dear Reynolds—I have parcelled out this day for Letter Writing—more resolved thereon because your Letter will come as a refreshment and will have (sic parvis etc.) the same effect as a Kiss in certain situations where people become over-generous. I have read this first sentence over, and think it savours rather; however an inward innocence is like a nested dove, as the old song says. …
Now I purposed to write to you a serious poetical letter, but I find that a maxim I met with the other day is a just one: “On cause míeux quand on ne dit pas causons.” I was hindered, however, from my first intention by a mere muslin Handkerchief very neatly pinned—but “Hence, vain deluding,” etc. Yet I cannot write in prose; it is a sunshiny day and I cannot, so here goes—
Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port,
Away with old Hock and Madeira,
Too earthly ye are for my sport;
There’s a beverage brighter and clearer.
Instead of a pitiful rummer,
My wine overbrims a whole summer;
My bowl is the sky,
And I drink at my eye,
Till I feel in the brain
A Delphian pain—
Then follow, my Caius! then follow:
On the green of the hill
We will drink our fill
Of golden sunshine,
Till our brains intertwine
With the glory and grace of Apollo!
God of the Meridian, And of the East and West, To thee my soul is flown, And my body is earthward press’d.— It is an awful mission, A terrible division; And leaves a gulph austere To be fill’d with worldly fear. Aye, when the soul is fled Too high above our head, Affrighted do we gaze After its airy maze, As doth a mother wild, When her young infant child Is in an eagle’s claws— And is not this the cause Of madness?—God of Song, Thou bearest me along Through sights I scarce can bear: O let me, let me share With the hot lyre and thee, The staid Philosophy. Temper my lonely hours, And let me see thy bowers More unalarm’d!
My dear Reynolds, you must forgive all this ranting—but the fact is, I cannot write sense this Morning—however you shall have some—I will copy out my last Sonnet.
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled Books in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain—
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
