WHAT BUT THEE, SLEEP! SOFT CLOSER OF OUR EYES! LOW MURMURER OF TENDER LULLABIES!-(JOHN KEATS)

"WHAT IS MORE GENTLE THAN A WIND IN SUMMER?— KEATS

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

Oh, for a beaker, full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim-
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget,

What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret

237

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few sad, last gray hairs;
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, †
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards.
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

* A fountain near Mount Helicon, sacred to the Muses, and therefore
furnishing the true draught for a poet.

The Theban Bacchus is usually represented as drawn by, or as riding,
the panther (or leopard), ass, tiger, or lion.

"Bacchus, Bacchus! on the panther:
He swoons, bound with his own vines.'

MRS. E. B. BROWNING.

"Bearded like the pard," occurs in Shakespeare's As You Like It.

MORE HEALTHFUL THAN THE LEAFINESS OF DALES?-(KEATS)

LIGHT HOVERER ROUND OUR HAPPY PILLOWS! WREATHER OF POPPY BUDS AND WEEPING WILLOWS !"-KEATS.

"THE LIGHT UPLIFTING OF A MAIDEN'S VEIL; A PIGEON TUMBLING IN CLEAR SUMMER AIR;-(JOHN KEATS)

238

LIFE IS THE ROSE'S HOPE WHILE YET UNBLOWN;

JOHN KEATS.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling, I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath:
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for
home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

* Compare with Tennyson :

"The lime a summer-house of murmurous wings."

THE READING OF AN EVER-CHANGING TALE."-KEATS.

A LAUGHING SCHOOL-BOY, WITHOUT GRIEF OR CARE, KIDING THE SPRINGY BRANCHES OF AN ELM."-KEATS.

"AH, WOULD 'TWERE SO WITH MANY A GENTLE GIRL AND BOY! BUT WERE THERE EVER ANY WRITHED NOT AT PASSED JOY?

"THE GREAT END OF POESY,-THAT IT SHOULD BE A FRIEND-(KEATS)

LAST WORDS.

Charmed magic casements,* opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music? Do I wake or sleep?

[From the "Miscellaneous Poems."]

239

B

LAST WORDS.

RIGHT 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 ablutions round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors :-
*"This beats Claude's 'Enchanted Castle,' and the story of King Beder
in the Arabian Nights.' You do not know what the house is, or where,
nor who the bird. Perhaps a king himself. But you see the window open
on the perilous sea, and hear the voice from out the trees in which it is
nested, sending its warble over the foam. The whole is at once vague and
particular, full of mysterious life. You see nobody, though something is
heard; and you know not what of beauty or wickedness is to come over
that sea."-Leigh Hunt.

TO SOOTHE THE CARES AND LIFT THE THOUGHTS OF MAN."-KEATS.

TO KNOW THE CHANGE AND FEEL IT, WHEN THERE IS NONE TO HEAL IT, WAS NEVER SAID IN RHYME."-JOHN KEATS.

"OH, TIMELY HAPPY, TIMELY WISE, HEARTS THAT WITH RISING MORN ARISE!-(JOHN KEBLE)

240

"THE UNDYING LAMP OF HEAVENLY POESY."-JOHN KEBLE.

REV. JOHN KEBLE.

No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed 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.

[From "Letters and Remains of John Keats." In this exquisite sonnet the genius of Keats found its last expression upon earth. Truly, the poet (as F. T. Palgrave says) deserved the title "marvellous boy"* in a much higher sense than Chatterton. "If the fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England appears to have lost in him one whose gifts in poetry have rarely been surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their lives been closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left poems of less excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty school and the London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of high collateral glory.""]

Reb. John Keble.

[JOHN Keble, the poet of "The Christian Year," was born at Fairford,
in Gloucestershire, in 1792. His genius commanded recognition at a very
early age.
He was only fifteen when he gained high university distinction
at Oxford, where, we may remark, he was eminently fortunate in his friend-
ships; his intellect being stimulated and his heart awakened by the con-
verse and society of the late Justice Coleridge, Dr. Arnold, Coplestone,
Whately, Pusey, and Newman-all of whom have since made their mark
in our English history and literature. In 1810 he obtained double first-
class honours, was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Oriel College,
and appointed to an examinership in the Degree Schools. In 1815 he was
ordained deacon; in 1816, priest; when he became his father's curate, and
for about twenty years discharged the duties of his post at Fairford with
simple earnestness and unaffected piety. "The Christian Year"-" the
great work of his life, which will keep his name fresh in men's memory
when all else that he has done shall be forgotten"-was published in 1827.
In 1833 its author, already famous, was appointed professor of poetry at
Oxford. In 1835, on the death of his father, he quitted Fairford; married
Miss Charlotte Clarke; and accepted the vicarage of Hursley, in Hamp-

* "The marvellous boy, who perished in his pride."

WORDSWORTH.

"LIFE, A WINTER'S MORN TO A BRIGHT ENDLESS YEAR."-KEBLE.

EYES THAT THE BEAM CELESTIAL VIEW, WHICH EVERMORE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW!"-KEBLE.

"WHY SHOULD WE FAINT AND FEAR TO LIVE alone,- KEBLE)

shire. Here he spent the remainder of his blameless life, ministering daily
until interrupted by the failing health of Mrs. Keble and himself. He
gradually decayed, and after a few days' illness passed away to his rest on
the eve of Good Friday, 1866.

Besides "The Christian Year," Mr. Keble published "Lyra Innocentium;"
“Thoughts in Verse on the Ways of Providence towards Little Children;"
a "Life of Bishop Wilson;" and an edition of Hooker's Works.

The special characteristics of his poetry, says Professor Shairp, seem to be-First, a tone of religious feeling, fresh, deep, and tender, beyond what was common even among religious men in the author's day, perhaps in any day; secondly, great intensity and tenderness of home affection; thirdly, a shy and delicate reserve, which loved quiet paths and shunned publicity; fourthly, a pure love of nature, and a spiritual eye to read nature's symbolism.]

"WHAT IF HEAVEN FOR ONCE ITS SEARCHING LIGHT LENT TO SOME PARTIAL EYE, DISCLOSING ALL

THE RUDE BAD THOUGHTS THAT IN OUR BOSOM'S NIGHT WANDER AT LARGE!"-JOHN KEBLE,

LESSONS OF SPRING.

ESSONS sweet of spring returning,
Welcome to the thoughtful heart!
May I call ye sense or learning,
Instinct pure, or Heaven-taught art?
Be your title what it may,
Sweet the lengthening April day,
While with you the soul is free,
Ranging wild o'er hill and lea.

Soft as Memnon's harp at morning,
To the inward ear devout,
Touched by light, with heavenly warning
Your transporting chords ring out.
Every leaf in every nook,
Every wave in every brook,
Chanting with a solemn voice,
Minds us of our better choice.

Needs no show of mountain hoary,
Winding shore or deepening glen,

SINCE ALL ALONE (SO HEAVEN HAS WILLEd) we die?"

-KEBLE.