Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,-
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.
HUSH, hush! tread softly! hush, hush my dear!
All the house is asleep, but we know very well
That the jealous, the jealous old bald-pate may hear,
Tho' you've padded his night-cap-O sweet Isabel!
Tho' your feet are more light than a Fairy's feet,
Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet,—
Hush, hush! soft tiptoe! hush, hush my dear!
For less than a nothing the jealous can hear.
No leaf doth tremble, no ripple is there
On the river, all's still, and the night's sleepy eye Closes up, and forgets all its Lethean care,
Charm'd to death by the drone of the humming Mayfly;
And the Moon, whether prudish or complaisant, Has fled to her bower, well knowing I want No light in the dusk, no torch in the gloom, But my Isabel's eyes, and her lips pulp'd with bloom.
Sonnet 8 lulling Houghton: dewy G. Keats and Dilke, fair copy. 8-12 Its sweet-death dews o'er every pulse and limbThen shut the hushed Casket of my soul
And turn the key round in the oiled wards
And let it rest until the morn has stole,
Bright tressed From the grey east's shuddering
bourn... Draft.
12 From the west's shuddering bourn... Draft, rejected.
Lift the latch! ah gently! ah tenderly-sweet!
We are dead if that latchet gives one little clink!
Well done-now those lips, and a flowery seat-
The old man may sleep, and the planets may wink;
The shut rose shall dream of our loves, and awake
Full blown, and such warmth for the morning's
take,
The stock-dove shall hatch her soft brace and shall coo,
While I kiss to the melody, aching all through!
I HAD a dove and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving:
O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied,
With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving;
Sweet little red feet! why should you die—
Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why?
You liv'd alone in the forest-tree,
Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me?
I kiss'd you oft and gave you white peas;
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?
"They toil not, neither do they spin."
ONE morn before me were three figures seen,
With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.
Song 3 0 what could it mourn for? it was tied...
How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less ; Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower: O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense Unhaunted quite of all but-nothingness?
A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd Each one the face a moment whiles to me; Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd
And ach'd for wings because I knew the three; The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name; The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
And ever watchful with fatigued eye;
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
Is heap'd upon her, maiden most unmeek,—
I knew to be my demon Poesy.
They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:
O folly! What is love! and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition! it springs
From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;
For Poesy!-no,-she has not a joy,-
At least for me, so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep'd in honied indolence;
O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,
That I may never know how change the moons, Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!
And once more came they by ;-alas! wherefore? My sleep had been embroider'd with dim dreams; My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o'er
With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
Tho' in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
The open casement press'd a new-leav'd vine,
Let in the budding warmth and throstle's lay;
O Shadows! 'twas a time to bid farewell!
Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.
So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise
My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;
Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store;
Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright, Into the clouds, and never more return!
WHY did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh! O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser-Death is Life's high meed.
Sonnet 6 Say, wherefore did I laugh? MS. 11 would] could MS.
A DREAM, AFTER READING DANTE'S EPISODE OF
As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And, seeing it asleep, so fled away-
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev'd a day;
But to that second circle of sad hell,
Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw, Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
FROM A LETTER TO GEORGE KEATS AND HIS WIFE
WHEN they were come into the Faery's Court
They rang-no one at home-all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faeries do
For Fa[e]ries be as humans, lovers true
Amid the woods they were, so lone and wild,
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd
And where the very brooks as if afraid
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
"No one at home!" the fretful princess cried
"And all for nothing such a dre[a]ry ride,
And all for nothing my new diamond cross,
No one to see my Persian feathers toss,
Sonnet 1-3 Full in the midst of bloomless hours my soul
Seeing one night the dragon world asleep
Arose like Hermes... Pocket Dante, rejected opening.
But not olympus-ward to serene skies...
Pocket Dante, cancelled.
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