THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS. Early Poems. DEDICATION. TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. "What more felicity can fall to creature SPENSER-Fate of the Butterfly. GLORY and Loveliness have passed away; No crowd of nymphs soft voiced and young, and gay, Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn The shrine of Flora in her early May. That in a time when under pleasant trees "Places of nestling green for Poets made."-Story of Rimini. I STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scanty leaved, and finely tapering stems, The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn, For round the horizon's crystal air to skim, A bush of May flowers with the bees about them; And let a lush laburnum oversweep them, And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them A filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined, Open afresh your round of starry folds, Dry up the moisture from your golden lids, That in these days your praises should be sung Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight : Linger awhile upon some bending planks How silent comes the water round that bend! To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle But turn your eye, and they are there again. Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings, Were I in such a place, I sure should pray That nought less sweet, might call my thoughts away, Than the soft rustle of a maiden's gown Fanning away the dandelion's down; Than the light music of her nimble toes Patting against the sorrel as she goes. How she would start, and blush, thus to be caught Playing in all her innocence of thought. |