SONNETS. I. TO MY BROTHER GEORGE. MANY the wonders I this day have seen : That fill'd the eyes of morn ;-the laurell'd peers Joseph Severn preserved a few leaves torn from a small oblong pocket note-book, bearing pencilled sketches by Keats of rude figures &c., and what seemed to be the first drafts (in pencil also) of this sonnet and the two quatrains of the sonnet 'To my Brothers'. I collated this draft with a careful transcript made by George Keats himself, and with another in Tom Keats's copy-book. This last does not vary from the printed text, and bears no date; but the other transcript, like that of the Epistle to George Keats, is subscribed "Margate, August, 1816". In the draft, line 3 at first stood unfinished and then and finally That trembled on the morning's eye That trembled in the eye of Morn That hung on Morning's cheek-the laurell'd Peers, which is the reading of George Keats's transcript. In line 4 we have 'That' for 'Who' in George's transcript; while the draft reads 'That in the Paleing (altered to 'feathery') gold'. In line 6 of the draft, 'Dangers' stands cancelled in favour of 'Rocks'. Line 8 in both draft and transcript is Must muse on what's to come and what has been. In line 10 the draft reads 'silver' for 'silken', and there is a cancelled line 11:Giving the world such snatches of delight, for which the reading of the text is substituted. The final couplet was originallyThe Sights have warmed me but without thy love, What Joy in Earth or Sea or Heaven above? This is cancelled in the draft in favour of the reading of the text. In line 13 George's transcript has 'thoughts' for 'thought'. Hunt's 'Examiner' review contains an excellent passage on the second quatrain, which, he says, "passes, with great happiness, from the mention of physical associations to mental; and concludes with a feeling which must have struck many a contemplative mind, that has found the sea-shore like a border, as it were, of existence. We have read somewhere the remark of a traveller, who said that when he was walking alone at night-time on the sea-shore, he felt conscious of the earth, not as the common every day sphere it seems, but as one of the planets, rolling round with him in the mightiness of space. The same feeling is common to imaginations that are not in need of similar local excitements." The ocean with its vastness, its blue green, And she her half-discover'd revels keeping. II. TO ****** HAD I a man's fair form, then might my sighs III. WRITTEN ON THE DAY THAT MR. LEIGH HUNT WHAT though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, In his immortal spirit, been as free As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. II. Tom Keats's copy-book contains a transcript of this sonnet showing no variation in the text, except by a copyist's error at the end, the last word being 'incantations'. There is no heading beyond the word 'Sonnet', no date, and no clue to the identity of the person addressed. III. The Hunts ("Wronged Libertas" and his brother) left prison on the 2nd of February 1815, according to Leigh Hunt's own account, though Thornton Hunt says the 3rd at page 99, Volume I, of the Correspondence' (1862). Professor Wilson, well described by Horne as "the clown of 'Blackwood's Magazine'", found sufficient ground here for one of the unseemliest of his coarse pleasantriesto wit the allegation that Keats fed Hunt "on the oil cakes of flattery" till he Minion of grandeur ! think you he did wait? Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair IV. How many bards gild the lapses of time! became "flatulent of praise". Keats's real offence was of course his friendship with a radical, and his v turing to characterize as "showing truth to flatter'd state" the article in 'The Examiner' for which Hunt and his brother were imprisoned for two years and fined a thousand pounds,-an article in which Hunt, doing battle with 'The Morning Post', thus translated the "language of adulation into that of truth": "What person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this 'Glory of the people' was the subject of millions of shrugs and reproaches!-- that this 'Exciter of desire' [bravo! Messieurs of the Post'!]-this 'Adonis in loveliness' was a corpulent man of fifty!-in short, this delightful, blissful, wise, pleasurable, honourable, virtuous, true, and immortal prince, was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one sir gle claim on the gratitude of his country, or the respect of posterity!" Even towards such a ruthless polemic as Professor Wilson one must seek to be just; and I do not doubt that he felt called upon to oppose the Hunt set with every pulsation of "a heart as rough as Esau's hand", but loyal enough to those politicians whom Keats called the Prince Regent's "wretched crew". It was really, I take it, from this poor little sonnet that the animus of the predominant press party against Keats originated. An article celebrating "The Departure of the Proprietors of this Paper from Prison" occupied the first page of 'The Examiner' for Sunday, the 5th of February 1815. The opening is as follows:"The two years' imprisonment inflicted on the Proprietors of this Paper for differing with the 'Morning Post' on the merits of the Prince Regent, expired on Thursday last; and on that day accordingly we quitted our respective Jails." On the subject of how they felt on the occasion, Hunt excuses himself from particularity, but observes with characteristic pleasantness, "there is a feeling of space and of airy clearness about everything, which is alternately delightful and painful." The greater part of the article is far from being in Hunt's best manner; but the end should stand on record here: "We feel that we have driven another nail or two into the old oaken edifice of English Liberty; and if we have rapped our fingers a little in the operation, it is only a laugh and a wring of the hands, and all is as it should be." IV. Hunt adduces the first line ('Examiner') as an example of Keats's "sense of the proper variety of versification without a due consideration of its principles ", and And often, when I sit me down to rhyme, V. TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME SOME ROSES. As late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew A fresh-blown musk-rose; 't was the first that threw And, as I feasted on its fragrancy, I thought the garden-rose it far excell'd: But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me My sense with their deliciousness was spell'd: Soft voices had they, that with tender plea Whisper'd of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell'd very justly adds, "by no contrivance of any sort can we prevent this from jumping out of the heroic measure into mere rhythmicality." Clarke records that when this and one or two other early poems of Keats were first shown by him to Hunt, Horace Smith, being present, remarked on the 13th line, "What a well-condensed expression for a youth so young!" His V. This sonnet was addressed to Charles Wells, the author of 'Stories after Nature', 'Joseph and his Brethren', and a few fugitive compositions. great dramatic poem, 'Joseph and his Brethren', probably came out late in 1823, for, though the title-page is dated 1824, the label at the back is dated 1823. The book was left in oblivion for something like fifty years. Wells, however, lived to find himself famous in 1876, on the issue of a revised edition, which I had the pleasure of fitting for and seeing through the press for him. He died at Marseilles on the 17th of February 1879, in his 78th year, having finally corrected and interpolated a copy of the new edition of his great work for some future re-edition. In Tom Keats's copy-book this sonnet is headed "To Charles Wells on receiving a bunch of roses," and dated "June 29, 1816." In this heading the word 'full-blown' stands cancelled before 'roses'. The only variation beyond spelling and pointing is in the last line, which is Whispered of truth, Humanity and Friendliness unquell'd, VI. TO G. A. W. NYMPH of the downward smile and sidelong glance, Art thou most lovely?-when gone far astray Of sober thought?-or when starting away And so remain, because thou listenest: I shall as soon pronounce which Grace more neatly VII. O SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell, Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, 'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. VI. The subject of this sonnet was Georgiana Augusta Wylie, who married Keats's brother George, and after his death became Mrs. Jeffrey. See foot-note at page 23. The holograph manuscript, headed "To Miss Wylie", corresponds verbatim with the sonnet as published in 1817; but in the two quatrains the better punctuation is that of the manuscripts; and I have followed it in the text. The thirteenth I'ne shows one correction: Nymph' was originally written where 'Grace' now bands. In a transcript in Tom Keats's copy-book we read 'what grace'; and the sonnet is headed "Sonnet to a Lady", and dated "Dec. 1816". Curiously nough Keats's edition also reads 'grace', with a small g, as if Tom had made de "press copy". VII. This sonnet, published in 'The Examiner' for the 5th of May 1816, signed J. K.", is stated by Charles Cowden Clarke (Gentleman's Magazine for February 1874) to be "Keats's first published poem". In Tom Keats's copyhook it is headed "Sonnet to Solitude", and undated. The only variation is 1 line 9,-'I'd' for 'I'll'. 'The Examiner' reads 'rivers' for 'river's' in ne 5, and lines 9 and 10 stand thus Ah! fain would I frequent such scenes with thee; But the sweet converse of an innocent mind. |