IV.

How many bards gild the lapses of time!

A few of them have ever been the food
Of my delighted fancy,-I could brood
Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,
These will in throngs before my mind intrude:
But no confusion, no disturbance rude

Do they occasion; 't is a pleasing chime.
So the unnumber'd sounds that evening store;
The songs of birds-the whisp'ring of the leaves-
The voice of waters-the great bell that heaves
With solemn sound,-and thousand others more,
That distance of recognizance bereaves,

Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

Hunt adduces the first line (see Appendix) as an example of Keats's "sense of the proper variety of versification without a due consideration of its principles ", and 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!"

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
From his lush clover covert ;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,

A fresh-blown musk-rose; 't was the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.

This sonnet was addressed to Charles Wells, the author of Stories after Nature, Joseph and his Brethren, and a few fugitive compositions. His 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 till within the last few 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. A single sentence from one of his last letters to me gives more insight into his character than anything of many times greater extent that could be added here:

"In stopping Joe" (latterly he wrote of Joseph and his Brethren in this familiar way as a rule, and under the term stop he included the whole work of revision and seeing through the press)—" In stopping Joe-if another fifty years does not (and it will not) stop

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.

him-get rid of all the dones and dids and thou and thines you possibly can.

"For ever and a day yours

"Joseph."

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,
In what diviner moments of the day

Art thou most lovely?-when gone far astray
Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance,
Or when serenely wand'ring in a trance

Of sober thought?—or when starting away
With careless robe to meet the morning ray
Thou spar'st the flowers in thy mazy dance?
Haply 'tis when thy ruby lips part sweetly,

And so remain, because thou listenest:
But thou to please wert nurtured so completely
That I can never tell what mood is best.

I shall as soon pronounce which Grace more neatly
Trips it before Apollo than the rest.

The subject of this sonnet was Miss Georgiana Augusta Wylie, afterwards the wife of Keats's brother George, and now (1881) Mrs. Jeffrey. I should not have connected the sonnet positively with this lady had I not seen the manuscript in Keats's writing, headed "To Miss Wylie." The manuscript corresponds verbatim with the sonnet as published in 1817; but in the two quatrains the better punctuation is that of the manuscript; and I have followed it in the The thirteenth line shows one correction: Nymph was originally written where Grace now stands. 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".

text.

VII.

SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell,

Let it not be among the jumbled heap

Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature's observatory-whence the dell,

Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,

May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep

'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift

leap

Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.

But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

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 copy-book it is headed " Sonnet to Solitude", and undated. The only variation is in line 9,—I'd for I'll. The Examiner reads rivers for river's in line 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.