BEN NEVIS.

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50

I must-I shall-I meet not such tit bits-
I meet not such sweet creatures every day—
By my old night-cap, night-cap night and day,
I must have one sweet Buss-I must and shall!
Red-Crag!-What, Madam, can you then repent
Of all the toil and vigour you have spent
To see Ben Nevis and to touch his nose?
Red-Crag, I say! O I must have them close!
Red-Crag, there lies beneath my farthest toe
A vein of Sulphur-go dear Red-Crag, go-
And rub your flinty back against it-budge!
Dear Madam, I must kiss you, faith I must!
I must Embrace you with my dearest gust!
Block-head, d'ye hear-Block-head, I'll make herfeel-
There lies beneath my east leg's northern heel
A cave of young earth dragons-well, my boy,
Go thither quick and so complete my joy;
Take you a bundle of the largest pines
And when the sun on fiercest Phosphor shines
Fire them and ram them in the Dragon's nest,
Then will the dragons fry and fizz their best
Until ten thousand now no bigger than
Poor Al[1]igators-poor things of one span-
Will each one swell to twice ten times the size
Of northern whale then for the tender prize-
The moment then-for then will Red-Crag rub
His flinty back-and I shall kiss and snub
And press my dainty morsel to my breast.
Block-head, make haste!

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70

O Muses weep the restThe Lady fainted and he thought her dead So pulled the clouds again about his head And went to sleep again-soon she was rous'd By her affrighted servants-next day hous'd Safe on the lowly ground she bless'd her fate That fainting fit was not delayed too late.

53 Keats explains that Block-head is Another domestic of Ben's. 74 He adds here in plain prose: But what surprises me above all is how this Lady got down again. I felt it horribly. 'Twas the most vile descent-shook me all to pieces.

TRANSLATION FROM A SONNET OF RONSARD NATURE withheld Cassandra in the skies,

For more adornment, a full thousand years; She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dyes, And shap'd and tinted her above all Peers: Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings, And underneath their shadow fill'd her eyes With such a richness that the cloudy Kings Of high Olympus utter'd slavish sighs. When from the Heavens I saw her first descend, My heart took fire, and only burning pains, 10 They were my pleasures-they my Life's sad end; Love pour'd her beauty into my warm veins...

"TIs the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen-
For what listen they?

For a song and for a charm,

See they glisten in alarm,

And the moon is waxing warm

To hear what I shall say.

Moon! keep wide thy golden ears

Hearken, stars! and hearken, spheres!-
Hearken, thou eternal sky!

I sing an infant's lullaby,

A pretty lullaby.

Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!

Though the rushes that will make
Its cradle still are in the lake-

Sonnet 3 dyes] dies MS.

10

Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree-
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep-
Listen, starlight, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!

Child, I see thee! Child, I've found thee
Midst of the quiet all around thee!
Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee!
And thy mother sweet is nigh thee!
Child, I know thee! Child no more,
But a Poet evermore!

See, see, the lyre, the lyre,
In a flame of fire,

Upon the little cradle's top
Flaring, flaring, flaring,
Past the eyesight's bearing.
Awake it from its sleep,
And see if it can keep
Its eyes upon the blaze-
Amaze, amaze !

It stares, it stares, it stares,
It dares what no one dares !

It lifts its little hand into the flame
Unharm'd, and on the strings
Paddles a little tune, and sings,
With dumb endeavour sweetly-
Bard art thou completely!
Little child

O' th' western wild,

Bard art thou completely!

Sweetly with dumb endeavour,
A Poet now or never,
Little child

O' th' western wild,

A Poet now or never!

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30

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50

STANZAS

I.

IN a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

II.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

III.

Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any

Writh'd not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is, none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.

SPENSERIAN STANZA

[Written at the close of Canto II, Book V, of
"The Faerie Queene."]

IN after-time, a sage of mickle lore
Yclep'd Typographus, the Giant took,
And did refit his limbs as heretofore,

And made him read in many a learned book,

I 1 and II 1 In a drear-nighted] In drear-nighted Holograph. III 5 The feel of not to feel it, Holograph.

7 steel Woodhouse: steal "The Gem," &c.

And into many a lively legend look; Thereby in goodly themes so training him, That all his brutishness he quite forsook, When, meeting Artegall and Talus grim, The one he struck stone-blind, the other's eyes wox dim.

THE EVE OF SAINT MARK

UPON a Sabbath-day it fell;
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell,
That call'd the folk to evening prayer;
The city streets were clean and fair
From wholesome drench of April rains;
And, on the western window panes,
The chilly sunset faintly told
Of unmatur'd green vallies cold,
Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,
Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge,
Of primroses by shelter'd rills,
And daisies on the aguish hills.
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell:
The silent streets were crowded well
With staid and pious companies,
Warm from their fire-side orat❜ries;
And moving, with demurest air,
To even-song, and vesper prayer.
Each arched porch, and entry low,
Was fill'd with patient folk and slow,
With whispers hush, and shuffling feet,
While play'd the organ loud and sweet.

The bells had ceas'd, the prayers begun,
And Bertha had not yet half done

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20

There are two extant holographs of "The Eve of St. Mark," one embodied in a letter to George Keats which I have not had an opportunity of collating with the text, and the other in the Keats Manuscript Book at the British Museum. The variations noted are from the Museum MS. 1 It was on a twice holiday MS., cancelled

7 The word blaz'd stands cancelled after sunset. 22 organ] organs MS,