And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.
Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle for down-glancing thence
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
And Brooke, in Constantia, has
The wind fresh blowing from the Syrian shore
Swift through the floods her spooming vessel bore.
{u
Nor cradled idly-but down glancing thence...
(71) In the manuscript and in the corrected copy, his; but her was printed in the first edition, and corrected as an erratum,-the only one in some copies. The mistake arose through a pencilled marginal suggestion made in the printer's copy, not in Keats's writing.
(74) Cancelled reading of the draft, Thine for Such.
(77-8) In the draft there was a false rhyme here, seen and remedied in copying out :
Where art thou Ah
Surely that light is from the Evening star...
(86-7) The draft shows more than one tentative for this passage, thus:
the idleness-but glancing thence...
O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
Their savage eyes with unaccustom'd lightning.
Where will the splendour be content to reach ?
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulph or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion.
On gold sand impearl'd
With lilly shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Yet not so idle-for down glancing thence
It mingles and starts about unfathomed...
(89-90) In the draft this couplet reads
Enormous sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning The whale's large eyes with unaccustomed lightning. (94-5) The draft reads thus
In air, or living flame-or magic shells,
In earth, or mist, in star or blazing sun,...
Lash'd from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy veils
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:—when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.
Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd,
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox ;-then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chac'd away that heaviness,
He might have di'd: but now, with cheered feel,
(128) In the draft, revellers for reveller.
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.
"What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst
move
My heart so potently? When yet a child
I oft have dry'd my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance :
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take, --
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blythly sing
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing spright
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
(140) Cancelled reading of the manuscript, went for kept. (150) The draft reads soul in place of eyes.
(156) This line affords a curious instance of waywardness in the matter of spelling: the last word but one is blithly in the first edition, blythly in the finished manuscript, and, fide Woodhouse, blithely in the draft. In Book I, line 939, the cognate adjective is spelt with a y, both in manuscript and in first edition; so that it is to be presumed that Keats really preferred this orthography, which is that adopted in Piers Plowman.
(159) The draft yields the alternative readings flew and sought in place of went.
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top-the sage's pen—
The poet's harp-the voice of friends—the sun;
Thou wast the river-thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast-thou wast my steed-
My goblet full of wine-my topmost deed :-
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized tune
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Myself to immortality: I prest
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss-
My strange love came-Felicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away-
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby power
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
My sovereign vision.-Dearest love, forgive
That I can think away from thee and live !-
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
(168) Instead of topmost the draft has highest.
(170) In the draft, harmonizing, and in the next line the alternative readings sung and made for struck.
(176) The draft reads dear pleasure's own abyss for Felicity's abyss.
(180) The draft reads orbed for orby.
(183) In the draft, instead of My sovereign vision, we read The vision of my Love.
VOL. I.
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