ENDYMION.

BOOK I.

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 5 Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

(1) The manuscript shows no variation in this renowned opening line; but Dr. B. W. Richardson tells me that his friend the late Mr. Henry Stephens of Finchley, who was a fellow student in medicine with Keats, and lived in the same rooms with him for a time, preserved the recollection of an earlier opening line. Keats is said to have written the line, presumably in some rough draft of his intended opening, thus

A thing of beauty is a constant joy :

the tradition is that his friend, on hearing this, pronounced the opening line "a fine line, but wanting something", and that Keats pondered it over, and at length broke out with an inspired "I have it", and set down the household word that now stands at the head of the poem.

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth.
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

(9) In the manuscript, ways stands altered to days.

ΙΟ

15

20

(13) Instead of line 13 there were originally three lines in the manuscript:

From our dark Spirits, and before us dances

Like glitter on the points of Arthur's Lances.

Of these bright powers are the Sun, and Moon...

But before the manuscript went to press Keats's keen perception of fitness rejected the medieval allusion, and supplied the reading of the text.

(15) In the manuscript,

of these are daffodils

And the green world, &c.

(20) The manuscript reads

Of these too are the grandeur of the dooms... (21) Compare Thomson's Seasons (Winter, line 432): And hold high converse with the mighty dead.

(24) In the manuscript,

Telling us we are on the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,

25

Haunt us till they become a cheering light

30

Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,

That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails

35

40

Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer

45

My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,

50

(29) In the manuscript,

And passion, poetry, glories infinite, ...

(50) Keats originally wrote this word vermil both here and in line 696 of this Book. Whether he adopted it from Spenser or some other writer I know not; but in Spenser it is vermell: see Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto X, stanza 24.

Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,

Be all about me when I make an end.

55

And now at once, adventuresome, I send

My herald thought into a wilderness:

There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress

60

My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

Upon the sides of Latmus was outspread A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed So plenteously all weed-hidden roots

65

Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb stray'd far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.

70

Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,

That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever

From the white flock, but pass'd unworried

75

By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,

Until it came to some unfooted plains

(58) In the manuscript there is a comma after now and none after adventuresome.

(71) The manuscript reads To which for Whither.

(74) In the manuscript, fleecy is altered to fleecing, which, in turn, is altered back to fleecy.