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Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:
These the queen of spells drew in;
She spread a charm around the spot,
And leaning graceful from the ethereal car,
Long did she gaze, and silently,
Upon the slumbering maid.

The Cloud.*

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
SI

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains ;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

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'The odes To the Skylark and The Cloud, in the opinion of many critics, bear a purer poetical stamp than any other of his productions. They were written as his mind prompted, listening to the carolling of the bird aloft in the azure sky of Italy; or marking the cloud as it sped across the heavens, while he floated in his boat on the Thames. No poet was ever warmed by a more genuine and unforced inspiration. His extreme sensibility gave the intensity of passion to his intellectual pursuits, and rendered his mind keenly alive to every perception of outward objects, as well as to his internal sensations. Such a gift is, among the sad vicissitudes of human life, the disappointments we meet, and the galling sense of our own mistakes and errors, fraught with pain; to escape from such he delivered up his soul to poetry, and felt happy when he sheltered himself from the influence of human sympathies in the wildest regions of fancy.'MRS SHELLEY, Pref. to Poet. Works.

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

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Better than all measures

Of delight and sound, Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

From The Sensitive Plant.'

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And the spring arose on the garden fair,
And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere;
And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Manad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,

Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
And all rare blossoms from every clime,
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom,
Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light, slanting through
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,

And starry river-buds glimmered by,

And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,

Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells
As fair as the fabulous asphodels;

And flowerets which, drooping as day drooped too,
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glowworm from the evening dew.

And from this undefiled Paradise

The flowers-as an infant's awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it—

When heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;

For each one was interpenetrated

With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear, Wrapt and filled by their mutual atmosphere.

But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small fruit
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,
Received more than all, it loved more than ever,
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver;

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower :
It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not-the beautiful!

The light winds which, from unsustaining wings,
Shed the music of many murmurings;
The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ;

The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres,
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;

The quivering vapours of dim noontide, Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, In which every sound, and odour, and beam, Move as reeds in a single stream;

Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by, Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.

And when evening descended from heaven above, And the earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned

In an ocean of dreams without a sound;
Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress
The light sand which paves it-consciousness

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale
Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,
And snatches of its Elysian chant

Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest
Up-gathered into the bosom of rest;
A sweet child weary of its delight,
The feeblest, and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of night.

Forest Scenery.

From Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude.
The noonday sun

Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms. There huge caves,
Scooped in the dark base of those airy rocks,
Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the poet's path, as, led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier death,
He sought in nature's dearest haunt, some bank,
Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate-the oak,
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar overarching frame
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang,
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
The gray trunks; and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles,
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
Make network of the dark-blue light of day
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable

As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyes with blooms
Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen

Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,

A soul-dissolving odour, to invite

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell
Silence and twilight here, twin sisters, keep
Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well,
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
Images all the woven boughs above;
And each depending leaf, and every speck
Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;
Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star
Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
Or gorgeous insect, floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples. The sun is warm, the sky is clear,

The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent light.
The breath of the moist air is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,

The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The city's voice itself is soft, like Solitude's.

I see the deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple sea-weeds strown ;

I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown;

I sit upon the sands alone,

The lightning of the noontide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion;

How sweet, did any heart now share in my emotion!

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To

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory-

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

JOHN KEATS.

JOHN KEATS was born in London, October 29, 1795, in the house of his grandfather, who kept a livery-stable at Moorfields. He received his education at Enfield, and in his fifteenth year was apprenticed to a surgeon. Most of his time, however, was devoted to the cultivation of his literary talents, which were early conspicuous. During his apprenticeship, he made and carefully wrote out a literal translation of Virgil's Eneid, but he does not appear to have been familiar with more difficult Latin poetry, nor to have even commenced learning the Greek language (Lord Houghton). One of his earliest friends and critics was Mr Leigh Hunt, who, being shewn some of his poetical pieces, was struck, he says, with the exuberant specimens of genuine though young poetry that were laid before him, and the promise of which was seconded by the fine fervid countenance of the writer. A volume of these juvenile poems was published in 1817. In 1818 Keats published his Endymion, a Poetic Romance, defective in many parts, but evincing rich though undisciplined powers of imagination. The poem was criticised, in a strain of contemptuous severity, by Mr John Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review; and such was the sensitiveness of the young poet-panting for distinction, and flattered by a few private friends-that the critique imbittered his existence. The first effects,' says Shelley, 'are described to me to have resembled insanity, and it was by assiduous watching that he was restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. The agony of his sufferings at length produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and the usual process of consumption appears to have begun.’ The process had begun, as was too soon apparent; but the disease was a family one, and would probably have appeared had no hostile criticism existed. Lord Houghton, Keats's biographer, states that the young poet profited by the attacks of the critics, their effect being' to purify his style, correct his tendency to exaggeration, enlarge his poetical studies, and produce, among other improved efforts, that very Hyperion which called forth from Byron a eulogy as violent and unqualified as the former onslaught.' Byron had termed the juvenile poetry of Keats, 'the drivelling idiotism of the manikin.' Keats's poetry falling into the hands of Jeffrey, he criticised it in the Edinburgh Review, in a spirit of kindliness and just appreciation which formed a strong contrast to the criticism in the Quarterly. But this genial critique did not appear till 1820, too late to cheer the then dying poet. Mr Keats,' says the eloquent critic, is, we understand, still a very young man; and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence enough of the fact. They manifestly require, therefore, all

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the indulgence that can be claimed for a first attempt; but we think it no less plain that they deserve it; for they are flushed all over with the rich lights of fancy, and so coloured and bestrown with the flowers of poetry, that, even while perplexed and bewildered in their labyrinths, it is impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness, or to shut our hearts to the enchantments they so lavishly present. The models upon which he has formed himself in the Endymion, the earliest and by much the most considerable of his poems, are obviously the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, and the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson, the exquisite metres and inspired diction of which he has copied with great boldness and fidelity; and, like his great originals, has also contrived to impart to the whole piece that true rural and poetical air which breathes only in them and in Theocritus-which is at once homely and majestic, luxurious and rude, and sets before us the genuine sights, and sounds, and smells of the country, with all the magic and grace of Elysium.' The genius of the poet was still further displayed in his latest volume, Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St Agnes, &c. This volume was well received. The state of the poet's health now became so alarming that, as a last effort for life, he was advised to try the milder climate of Italy. A young friend, Mr Severn, an artist (now British consul at Rome), generously abandoned his professional __prospects at home, in order to accompany Keats; and they sailed in September 1820. The invalid suffered severely during the voyage, and he had to endure a ten days' quarantine at Naples. The thoughts of a young lady to whom he was betrothed, and the too great probability that he would see her no more, added a deeper gloom to his mind, and he seems never to have rallied from this depression. At Rome, Mr Severn watched over him with affectionate care; Dr Clark also was unremitting in his attendance; but he daily got worse, and died on the 23d of February 1821. Keats was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, one of the most beautiful spots on which the eye and heart of man can rest.

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inspired by the Titans: it is as sublime as Eschylus."

It was the misfortune of Keats, as a poet, to be either extravagantly praised or unmercifully condemned. The former was owing to the generous partialities of friendship, somewhat obtrusively displayed; the latter, in some degree, to resentment of that friendship, connected as it was with party politics and peculiar views of society as well as of poetry. In the one case his faults, and in the other his merits, were entirely overlooked. A few years dispelled these illusions and prejudices. Keats was a true poet. If we consider his extreme youth and delicate health, his solitary and interesting self-instruction, the severity of the attacks made upon him by his hostile and powerful critics, and, above all, the original richness and picturesqueness of his conceptions and imagery, even when they run to waste, he appears to be one of the greatest of the young poets-resembling the Milton of Lycidas, or the Spenser of the Tears of the Muses. What easy, finished, statuesque beauty and classic expression, for example, are displayed in this picture of Saturn and Thea!

Saturn and Thea.-From 'Hyperion.'

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity

Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin sand large footmarks went
No further than to where his feet had strayed,
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;
While his bowed head seemed listening to the earth,
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

It seemed no force could wake him from his place;
But there came one, who with a kindred hand
Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low
With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
She was a goddess of the infant world;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en
Achilles by the hair, and bent his neck;
Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestaled haply in a palace court,
When sages looked to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face!

'It is,' says Lord Houghton, 'a grassy slope amid verdurous ruins of the Honorian walls of the diminished city, and surmounted by the pyramidal tomb which Petrarch attributed to Remus, but which antiquarian truth has ascribed to the humbler name of Caius Cestius, a Tribune of the people only remembered by his sepulchre. In one of those mental voyages into the past which often precede death, Keats had told Severn that thought the intensest pleasure he had received in life was in watching the growth of flowers;" and another time, after lying a while still and peaceful, he said: "I feel the flowers growing over me." And there they do grow even all the winter long-violets and daisies mingling with the fresh herbage, and, in the words of saying in Don Juan that Keats was killed off by one critique: Shelley, "making one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a

he

Byron could not, however, resist the seeming smartness of

"Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article!

place." Keats had a few days before his death Mr Croker, writing to a friend about this article,' in a letter expressed a wish to Mr Severn that on his which we have seen, said: 'Gifford added some pepper to my gravestone should be the inscription: "Here grill." A miserable piece of cookery they made of it! High as is lies one whose name was writ in water." Shelley personal friends and by Shelley; and even ten years after his now the fame of Keats, it is said he died 'admired only by his honoured the memory of Keats with his exquisite death, when the first Memoir was proposed, the woman he had elegy Adonais. Even Byron felt that the young Mr Dilke: "The kindest act would be to let him rest for ever in loved had so little belief in his poetic reputation, that she wrote to poet's death was a loss to literature. The the obscurity to which circumstances have condemned him."fragment of Hyperion, he said, "seems actually Papers of a Critic, vol. i. p. 11.

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