Poetry, John Keats [grave mercy .txt] 📗
- Author: John Keats
Book online «Poetry, John Keats [grave mercy .txt] 📗». Author John Keats
Shed a quill-feather from my larboard wing—
Wish’d, trusted, hoped ’twas no sign of decay—
Thank Heaven, I’m hearty yet!—’twas no such thing:—
At five the golden light began to spring,
With fiery shudder through the bloomed east;
At six we heard Panthea’s churches ring—
The city all his unhived swarms had cast,
To watch our grand approach, and hail us as we pass’d. LXXXI
“As flowers turn their faces to the sun,
So on our flight with hungry eyes they gaze,
And, as we shaped our course, this, that way run,
With mad-cap pleasure, or hand-clasp’d amaze:
Sweet in the air a mild-toned music plays,
And progresses through its own labyrinth;
Buds gather’d from the green spring’s middle-days,
They scatter’d—daisy, primrose, hyacinth—
Or round white columns wreathed from capital to plinth.
“Onward we floated o’er the panting streets,
That seem’d throughout with upheld faces paved;
Look where we will, our bird’s-eye vision meets
Legions of holiday; bright standards waved,
And fluttering ensigns emulously craved
Our minute’s glance; a busy thunderous roar,
From square to square, among the buildings raved,
As when the sea, at flow, gluts up once more
The craggy hollowness of a wild-reefed shore.
“And ‘Bellanaine for ever!’ shouted they!
While that fair Princess, from her winged chair,
Bow’d low with high demeanour, and, to pay
Their new-blown loyalty with guerdon fair,
Still emptied, at meet distance, here and there,
A plenty horn of jewels. And here I
(Who wish to give the devil her due) declare
Against that ugly piece of calumny,
Which calls them Highland pebble-stones not worth a fly.
“Still ‘Bellanaine!’ they shouted, while we glide
’Slant to a light Ionic portico,
The city’s delicacy, and the pride
Of our Imperial Basilic; a row
Of lords and ladies, on each hand, make show
Submissive of knee-bent obeisance,
All down the steps; and, as we enter’d, lo!
The strangest sight—the most unlook’d-for chance—
All things turn’d topsy-turvy in a devil’s dance.
“ ’Stead of his anxious Majesty and court
At the open doors, with wide saluting eyes,
Congées and scrape-graces of every sort,
And all the smooth routine of gallantries,
Was seen, to our immoderate surprise,
A motley crowd thick gather’d in the hall,
Lords, scullions, deputy-scullions, with wild cries
Stunning the vestible from wall to wall,
Where the Chief Justice on his knees and hands doth crawl.
“Counts of the palace, and the state purveyor
Of moth’s-down, to make soft the royal beds,
The Common Council and my fool Lord Mayor
Marching a-row, each other slipshod treads;
Powder’d bag-wigs and ruffy-tuffy heads
Of cinder wenches meet and soil each other;
Toe crush’d with heel ill-natured fighting breeds,
Frill-rumpling elbows brew up many a bother,
And fists in the short ribs keep up the yell and pother.
“A Poet, mounted on the Court-Clown’s back,
Rode to the Princess swift with spurring heels,
And close into her face, with rhyming clack,
Began a Prothalamion;—she reels,
She falls, she faints!—while laughter peals
Over her woman’s weakness. ‘Where!’ cried I,
‘Where is his Majesty?’ No person feels
Inclined to answer; wherefore instantly
I plunged into the crowd to find him or to die.
“Jostling my way I gain’d the stairs, and ran
To the first landing, where, incredible!
I met, far gone in liquor, that old man,
That vile impostor Hum,⸺’
So far so well,—
For we have proved the Mago never fell
Down stairs on Crafticanto’s evidence;
And therefore duly shall proceed to tell,
Plain in our own original mood and tense,
The sequel of this day, though labour ’tis immense!
Brother, belov’d if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever’d cheek:
If e’er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength regain,
Well may thy brow the placid glow retain
Of sweet content and thy pleas’d eye may speak
The conscious self applause, but should I seek
To utter what this heart can feel,—Ah! vain
Were the attempt! Yet kindest friends while o’er
My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness
The being whom your cares could e’en restore,
From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess
The feelings which these lips can ne’er express?
Feelings, deep fix’d in grateful memory’s store.
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art!
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors:
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
“Mr. Nisby is of opinion that laced coffee is bad for the head.”
—Spectator.↩
Cham is said to have been the inventor of magic. Lucy learnt this from Bayle’s Dictionary, and had copied a long Latin note from that work. ↩
Colophon
Poetry
was compiled from poetry published between 1816 and 1820 by
John Keats.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive
and at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.
The cover page is adapted from
John Keats in His Study at Hampstead,
a painting completed between 1821–1823 by
Joseph Severn.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
October 19, 2017, 9:59 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
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