ΙΟ

From Sickness I charm thee,
And Time shall not harm thee:

But Earth, which is mine,

Its fruit shall deny thee;

And Water shall hear me,

And know thee and fly thee;

And the Winds shall not touch thee

When they pass by thee,

15 And the Dews shall not wet thee
When they fall nigh thee:
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee, in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;

20

And Sleep shall obey me,

And visit thee never,

25 And the Curse shall be on thee
Forever and ever.

Observe the normal metre that swings the curse.

Note lines which are

anapestic, amphibrach, and dactylic. Compare this curse in thought

and metre with the curse in Byron's "Manfred," Act. I. 1.:

"When the moon is on the wave,

And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,

And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answer'd owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still

In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine,

With a power and with a sign.

"Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades which will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish
By a power to thee unknown,

Thou canst never be alone;

Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,

Thou art gather'd in a cloud;

And forever shalt thou dwell

In the spirit of this spell.

"And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse
And a spirit of the air

Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall Night deny
All the quiet of her sky;

And the day shall have a sun,

Which shall make thee wish it done.

"And on thy head I pour the vial

Which doth devote thee to this trial;

Nor to slumber, nor to die,

Shall be in thy destiny;

Though thy death shall still seem near

To thy wish, but as a fear;

Lo! the spell now works around thee,

And the clankless chain hath bound thee;

O'er thy heart and brain together,

Hath the word been pass'd-now wither!"

THEY SIN WHO TELL US LOVE CAN DIE

THE CURSE OF KEHAMA, X. MOUNT MERU, 9, 10

(Kailyal escapes the curse by reason of her grasping the idol Marriataly, the goddess of the poor, and tumbling into the river with it; from the stream she is rescued by her father, at whose

touch the waters recede, according to the curse of Kehama. The daughter and the father are together for a time, until Ladurlad's curse is greater than he can bear; therefore, he leaves Kailyal sleeping in that slumber which is denied to him, and to the dews which never can bathe his fevered brow. Kailyal soon awakes and tries to find her father. In the forest she is pursued by the spectre of Arvalan, who would have seized her, if it had not been for Pollear, the god of travelers, in whose sanctuary she receives protection. Now, an angel, Ereenia, of the Glendoveers, carries her to the grove of Casyapa, the sire of gods; from here, in order to escape Kehama, she is taken in a ship of Heaven to Swerga, the bower of bliss; and, by her further pleadings, permission is granted Ladurlad for a time to rest from the curse in the awful place where the Ganges had its second birth below the sphere of Indra on the shores of Mount Meru's lovely lake. Yedillian, Ladurlad's dead wife, now comes, and the joys of the family are complete.

The daughter and husband's ecstasies at the sight of Yedillian, "Fram'd of the elements of Heaven," whose beauties have been refined by death, form the contents of the following exquisite verses.)

5

ΙΟ

9

The Maid that lovely form surveyed;
Wistful she gazed, and knew her not;

But Nature to her heart conveyed
A sudden thrill, a startling thought,
A feeling many a year forgot,
Now like a dream anew recurring,
As if again in every vein
Her mother's milk was stirring.
With straining neck and earnest eye,
She stretched her hands imploringly,
As if she fain would have her nigh,
Yet feared to meet the wished embrace,
At once with love and awe oppressed.

Not so Ladurlad; he could trace,

15 Though brightened with angelic grace,

20

25

30

His own Yedillian's earthly face:
He ran, and held her to his breast!
Oh joy above all joys of Heaven!

By Death alone to others given,
This moment hath to him restored
The early-lost, the long-deplored.

ΙΟ

They sin who tell us Love can die:
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.

In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;
Earthly these passions of the Earth,
They perish where they have their birth.
But Love is indestructible:

Its holy flame forever burneth;

From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
It here is tried and purified,

35 Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care;

But the harvest-time of Love is there.

Compare Southey's definition of love with that of Coleridge's found in the first stanza of his ballad, "Love":

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of love,

And feed his sacred flame."

JOHN KEATS

1795-1821

No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of loveliness. - Matthew Arnold. If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me- —nothing to make my friends proud of my memory; but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time, I would have made myself remembered. – Keats.

Optional Poems

I Stood Tip-Toe Upon A Little Hill

Lamia.

Ode On Melancholy.

Sonnet To Homer.

Fragment Of An Ode To Maia.

Sonnet: A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paulo

And Francesca.

Sonnet: The Day Is Gone —

Phrases

Here are sweet peas oǹ tip-toe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white.

...

-I Stood Tip-Toe Upon A Little Hill

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams,
To taste the luxury of sunny beams