WHAT BUT THEE, SLEEP! SOFT CLOSER OF OUR EYES! LOW MURMURER OF TENDER LULLABIES!-(JOHN KEATS) "WHAT IS MORE GENTLE THAN A WIND IN SUMMER?— KEATS ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. Oh, for a beaker, full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, What thou among the leaves hast never known, 237 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, † Though the dull brain perplexes and retards. But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown * A fountain near Mount Helicon, sacred to the Muses, and therefore The Theban Bacchus is usually represented as drawn by, or as riding, "Bacchus, Bacchus! on the panther: MRS. E. B. BROWNING. "Bearded like the pard," occurs in Shakespeare's As You Like It. MORE HEALTHFUL THAN THE LEAFINESS OF DALES?-(KEATS) LIGHT HOVERER ROUND OUR HAPPY PILLOWS! WREATHER OF POPPY BUDS AND WEEPING WILLOWS !"-KEATS. "THE LIGHT UPLIFTING OF A MAIDEN'S VEIL; A PIGEON TUMBLING IN CLEAR SUMMER AIR;-(JOHN KEATS) 238 LIFE IS THE ROSE'S HOPE WHILE YET UNBLOWN; JOHN KEATS. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, Wherewith the seasonable month endows And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, Darkling, I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, To take into the air my quiet breath: Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath * Compare with Tennyson : "The lime a summer-house of murmurous wings." THE READING OF AN EVER-CHANGING TALE."-KEATS. A LAUGHING SCHOOL-BOY, WITHOUT GRIEF OR CARE, KIDING THE SPRINGY BRANCHES OF AN ELM."-KEATS. "AH, WOULD 'TWERE SO WITH MANY A GENTLE GIRL AND BOY! BUT WERE THERE EVER ANY WRITHED NOT AT PASSED JOY? "THE GREAT END OF POESY,-THAT IT SHOULD BE A FRIEND-(KEATS) LAST WORDS. Charmed magic casements,* opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Was it a vision, or a waking dream? [From the "Miscellaneous Poems."] 239 B LAST WORDS. RIGHT Star! would I were steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, Of snow upon the mountains and the moors :- TO SOOTHE THE CARES AND LIFT THE THOUGHTS OF MAN."-KEATS. TO KNOW THE CHANGE AND FEEL IT, WHEN THERE IS NONE TO HEAL IT, WAS NEVER SAID IN RHYME."-JOHN KEATS. "OH, TIMELY HAPPY, TIMELY WISE, HEARTS THAT WITH RISING MORN ARISE!-(JOHN KEBLE) 240 "THE UNDYING LAMP OF HEAVENLY POESY."-JOHN KEBLE. REV. JOHN KEBLE. No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest; And so live ever-or else swoon to death. [From "Letters and Remains of John Keats." In this exquisite sonnet the genius of Keats found its last expression upon earth. Truly, the poet (as F. T. Palgrave says) deserved the title "marvellous boy"* in a much higher sense than Chatterton. "If the fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England appears to have lost in him one whose gifts in poetry have rarely been surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their lives been closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left poems of less excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty school and the London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of high collateral glory.""] Reb. John Keble. [JOHN Keble, the poet of "The Christian Year," was born at Fairford, * "The marvellous boy, who perished in his pride." WORDSWORTH. "LIFE, A WINTER'S MORN TO A BRIGHT ENDLESS YEAR."-KEBLE. EYES THAT THE BEAM CELESTIAL VIEW, WHICH EVERMORE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW!"-KEBLE. "WHY SHOULD WE FAINT AND FEAR TO LIVE alone,- KEBLE) shire. Here he spent the remainder of his blameless life, ministering daily Besides "The Christian Year," Mr. Keble published "Lyra Innocentium;" The special characteristics of his poetry, says Professor Shairp, seem to be-First, a tone of religious feeling, fresh, deep, and tender, beyond what was common even among religious men in the author's day, perhaps in any day; secondly, great intensity and tenderness of home affection; thirdly, a shy and delicate reserve, which loved quiet paths and shunned publicity; fourthly, a pure love of nature, and a spiritual eye to read nature's symbolism.] "WHAT IF HEAVEN FOR ONCE ITS SEARCHING LIGHT LENT TO SOME PARTIAL EYE, DISCLOSING ALL THE RUDE BAD THOUGHTS THAT IN OUR BOSOM'S NIGHT WANDER AT LARGE!"-JOHN KEBLE, LESSONS OF SPRING. ESSONS sweet of spring returning, Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, Needs no show of mountain hoary, SINCE ALL ALONE (SO HEAVEN HAS WILLEd) we die?" -KEBLE. |