Through sunny air. Add too, the sweetness Of thy honey'd voice; the neatness Of thine ankle lightly turn'd: With those beauties, scarce discern'd, Kept with such sweet privacy, That they seldom meet the eye 25 Tell me what thou wouldst have been? Ah! I see the silver sheen Of thy broider'd, floating vest Cov'ring half thine ivory breast; Which, O heavens! I should see, 40 45 ΤΟ НОРЕ. WHEN HEN by my solitary hearth I sit, And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom; When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit, And the bare heath of life presents no bloom; Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head. Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night, Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray, Should sad Despondency my musings fright, 5 And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away, Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof, 10 Should Disappointment, parent of Despair, 15 When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air, Chace him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright, Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow, 20 O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer; Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain, In the long vista of the years to roll, Let me not see our country's honour fade: O let me see our land retain her soul, 25 30 Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade. Let me not see the patriot's high bequest, 40 But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings And as, in sparkling majesty, a star Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud; February, 1815. 45 IMITATION OF SPENSER. Now Morning from her orient chamber came, And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill; Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill, There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright The copy of these stanzas in Tom Keats's copy-book has a reading in line 12 which ought perhaps to supersede the printed text of 1817, namely, golden scalès light. It seems highly likely that Keats really meant to carry his archaism to the extent of making scales a dissyllable, especially as the metre is thus corrected. Lord Houghton states on the authority of the notes of Charles Armitage Brown, given to his lordship in 1832, that this is the earliest known composition of Keats, and was written while he was living at Edmonton. |