letters/poetry/keats_poems_1820.json

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  {
    "title": "The Eve Of St. Agnes",
    "body": "In _Lamia_ and _Hyperion_, as in _Endymion_, we find Keats inspired by\nclassic story, though the inspiration in each case came to him through\nElizabethan writers. Here, on the other hand, mediaeval legend is his\ninspiration; the 'faery broods' have driven 'nymph and satyr from the\nprosperous woods'. Akin to the Greeks as he was in spirit, in his\ninstinctive personification of the lovely manifestations of nature, his\nstyle and method were really more naturally suited to the portrayal of\nmediaeval scenes, where he found the richness and warmth of colour in\nwhich his soul delighted.\n\nThe story of _Isabella_ he took from Boccaccio, an Italian writer of the\nfourteenth century, whose _Decameron_, a collection of one hundred\nstories, has been a store-house of plots for English writers. By\nBoccaccio the tale is very shortly and simply told, being evidently\ninteresting to him mainly for its plot. Keats was attracted to it not so\nmuch by the action as by the passion involved, so that his enlargement\nof it means little elaboration of incident, but very much more dwelling\non the psychological aspect. That is to say, he does not care so much\nwhat happens, as what the personages of the poem think and feel.\n\nThus we see that the main incident of the story, the murder of Lorenzo,\nis passed over in a line--'Thus was Lorenzo slain and buried in,' the\nnext line, 'There, in that forest, did his great love cease,' bringing\nus back at once from the physical reality of the murder to the thought\nof his love, which is to Keats the central fact of the story.\n\nIn the delineation of Isabella, her first tender passion of love, her\nagony of apprehension giving way to dull despair, her sudden wakening to\na brief period of frenzied action, described in stanzas of incomparable\ndramatic force, and the 'peace' which followed when she\n\n     Forgot the stars, the moon, the sun,\n     And she forgot the blue above the trees,\n     And she forgot the dells where waters run,\n     And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;\n     She had no knowledge when the day was done,\n     And the new morn she saw not--\n\nculminating in the piteous death 'too lone and incomplete'--in the\ndelineation of all this Keats shows supreme power and insight.\n\nIn the conception, too, of the tragic loneliness of Lorenzo's ghost we\nfeel that nothing could be changed, added, or taken away.\n\nNot quite equally happy are the descriptions of the cruel brothers, and\nof Lorenzo as the young lover. There is a tendency to exaggerate both\ntheir inhumanity and his gentleness, for purposes of contrast, which\nweakens where it would give strength.\n\n_The Eve of St. Agnes_, founded on a popular mediaeval legend, not being\na tragedy like _Isabella_, cannot be expected to rival it in depth and\nintensity; but in every other poetic quality it equals, where it does\nnot surpass, the former poem.\n\nTo be specially noted is the skilful use which Keats here makes of\ncontrast--between the cruel cold without and the warm love within; the\npalsied age of the Bedesman and Angela, and the eager youth of Porphyro\nand Madeline; the noise and revel and the hush of Madeline's bedroom,\nand, as Mr. Colvin has pointed out, in the moonlight which, chill and\nsepulchral when it strikes elsewhere, to Madeline is as a halo of glory,\nan angelic light.\n\nA mysterious charm is given to the poem by the way in which Keats endows\ninanimate things with a sort of half-conscious life. The knights and\nladies of stone arouse the bedesman's shuddering sympathy when he thinks\nof the cold they must be enduring; 'the carven angels' '_star'd_'\n'_eager-eyed_' from the roof of the chapel, and the scutcheon in\nMadeline's window '_blush'd_ with blood of queens and kings'.\n\nKeats's characteristic method of description--the way in which, by his\nmasterly choice of significant detail, he gives us the whole feeling of\nthe situation, is here seen in its perfection. In stanza 1 each line is\na picture and each picture contributes to the whole effect of painful\nchill. The silence of the sheep, the old man's breath visible in the\nfrosty air,--these are things which many people would not notice, but it\nis such little things that make the whole scene real to us.\n\nThere is another method of description, quite as beautiful in its way,\nwhich Coleridge adopted with magic effect in _Christabel_. This is to\nuse the power of suggestion, to say very little, but that little of a\nkind to awaken the reader's imagination and make him complete the\npicture. For example, we are told of Christabel--\n\n     Her gentle limbs did she undress\n     And lay down in her loveliness.\n\nCompare this with stanza xxvi of _The Eve of St. Agnes_.\n\nThat Keats was a master of both ways of obtaining a romantic effect is\nshown by his _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_, considered by some people his\nmasterpiece, where the rich detail of _The Eve of St. Agnes_ is replaced\nby reserve and suggestion.\n\nAs the poem was not included in the volume published in 1820, it is\ngiven here.\n\n     LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.\n\n     Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms\n       Alone and palely loitering?\n     The sedge has withered from the Lake\n       And no birds sing.\n\n     Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms\n       So haggard, and so woe begone?\n     The Squirrel's granary is full\n       And the harvest's done.\n\n     I see a lily on thy brow\n       With anguish moist and fever dew,\n     And on thy cheeks a fading rose\n       Fast withereth too.\n\n     I met a Lady in the Meads\n       Full beautiful, a faery's child,\n     Her hair was long, her foot was light\n       And her eyes were wild.\n\n     I made a garland for her head,\n       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,\n     She look'd at me as she did love\n       And made sweet moan.\n\n     I set her on my pacing steed,\n       And nothing else saw all day long,\n     For sidelong would she bend and sing\n       A Faery's song.\n\n     She found me roots of relish sweet,\n       And honey wild and manna dew,\n     And sure in language strange she said\n       I love thee true.\n\n     She took me to her elfin grot,\n       And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,\n     And there I shut her wild, wild eyes\n       With kisses four.\n\n     And there she lulled me asleep,\n       And there I dream'd, Ah! Woe betide!\n     The latest dream I ever dreamt\n       On the cold hill side.\n\n     I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,\n       Pale warriors, death pale were they all;\n     They cried, La belle dame sans merci,\n       Thee hath in thrall.\n\n     I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam\n       With horrid warning gaped wide,\n     And I awoke, and found me here\n       On the cold hill's side.\n\n     And this is why I sojourn here\n       Alone and palely loitering;\n     Though the sedge is withered from the Lake\n       And no birds sing. . ..\n\n\nNOTES ON ISABELLA.\n\n_Metre._ The _ottava rima_ of the Italians, the natural outcome of\nKeats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by\nChaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in _The\nMonks and the Giants_ and by Byron in _Don Juan_. Compare Keats's use of\nthe form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he\navoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but\ninappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.\n\nPAGE 49. l. 2. _palmer_, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine\nwhere, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a\nwoman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.\n\nPAGE 50. l. 21. _constant as her vespers_, as often as she said her\nevening-prayers.\n\nPAGE 51. l. 34. _within . . . domain_, where it should, naturally, have\nbeen rosy.\n\nPAGE 52. l. 46. _Fever'd . . . bridge._ Made his sense of her worth more\npassionate.\n\nll. 51-2. _wed To every symbol._ Able to read every sign.\n\nPAGE 53. l. 62. _fear_, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e.g. 'Fear\nboys with bugs,' _Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 211.\n\nl. 64. _shrive_, confess. As the pilgrim cannot be at peace till he has\nconfessed his sins and received absolution, so Lorenzo feels the\nnecessity of confessing his love.\n\nPAGE 54. ll. 81-2. _before the dusk . . . veil._ A vivid picture of the\ntwilight time, after sunset, but before it is dark enough for the stars\nto shine brightly.\n\nll. 83-4. The repetition of the same words helps us to feel the\nunchanging nature of their devotion and joy in one another.\n\nPAGE 55. l. 91. _in fee_, in payment for their trouble.\n\nl. 95. _Theseus' spouse._ Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus after\nhaving saved his life and left her home for him. _Odyssey_, xi. 321-5.\n\nl. 99. _Dido._ Queen of Carthage, whom Aeneas, in his wanderings, wooed\nand would have married, but the Gods bade him leave her.\n\n_silent . . . undergrove._ When Aeneas saw Dido in Hades, amongst those\nwho had died for love, he spoke to her pityingly. But she answered him\nnot a word, turning from him into the grove to Lychaeus, her former\nhusband, who comforted her. Vergil, _Aeneid_, Bk. VI, l. 450 ff.\n\nl. 103. _almsmen_, receivers of alms, since they take honey from the\nflowers.\n\nPAGE 56. l. 107. _swelt_, faint. Cf. Chaucer, _Troilus and Cressida_,\niii. 347.\n\nl. 109. _proud-quiver'd_, proudly girt with quivers of arrows.\n\nl. 112. _rich-ored driftings._ The sand of the river in which gold was\nto be found.\n\nPAGE 57. l. 124. _lazar_, leper, or any wretched beggar; from the\nparable of Dives and Lazarus.\n\n_stairs_, steps on which they sat to beg.\n\nl. 125. _red-lin'd accounts_, vividly picturing their neat\naccount-books, and at the same time, perhaps, suggesting the human blood\nfor which their accumulation of wealth was responsible.\n\nl. 130. _gainful cowardice._ A telling expression for the dread of loss\nwhich haunts so many wealthy people.\n\nl. 133. _hawks . . . forests._ As a hawk pounces on its prey, so they\nfell on the trading-vessels which put into port.\n\nll. 133-4. _the untired . . . lies._ They were always ready for any\ndishonourable transaction by which money might be made.\n\nl. 134. _ducats._ Italian pieces of money worth about 4_s._ 4_d._ Cf.\nShylock, _Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 15, 'My ducats.'\n\nl. 135. _Quick . . . away._ They would undertake to fleece unsuspecting\nstrangers in their town.\n\nPAGE 58. l. 137. _ledger-men._ As if they only lived in their\naccount-books. Cf. l. 142.\n\nl. 140. _Hot Egypt's pest_, the plague of Egypt.\n\nll. 145-52. As in _Lycidas_ Milton apologizes for the introduction of\nhis attack on the Church, so Keats apologizes for the introduction of\nthis outburst of indignation against cruel and dishonourable dealers,\nwhich he feels is unsuited to the tender and pitiful story.\n\nl. 150. _ghittern_, an instrument like a guitar, strung with wire.\n\nPAGE 59. ll. 153-60. Keats wants to make it clear that he is not trying\nto surpass Boccaccio, but to give him currency amongst English-speaking\npeople.\n\nl. 159. _stead thee_, do thee service.\n\nl. 168. _olive-trees._ In which (through the oil they yield) a great\npart of the wealth of the Italians lies.\n\nPAGE 60. l. 174. _Cut . . . bone._ This is not only a vivid way of\ndescribing the banishment of all their natural pity. It also, by the\nmetaphor used, gives us a sort of premonitory shudder as at Lorenzo's\ndeath. Indeed, in that moment the murder is, to all intents and\npurposes, done. In stanza xxvii they are described as riding 'with their\nmurder'd man'.\n\nPAGE 61. ll. 187-8. _ere . . . eglantine._ The sun, drying up the dew\ndrop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as passing beads along a\nstring, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.\n\nPAGE 62. l. 209. _their . . . man._ Cf. l. 174, note. Notice the\nextraordinary vividness of the picture here--the quiet rural scene and\nthe intrusion of human passion with the reflection in the clear water of\nthe pale murderers, sick with suspense, and the unsuspecting victim,\nfull of glowing life.\n\nl. 212. _bream_, a kind of fish found in lakes and deep water. Obviously\nKeats was not an angler.\n\n_freshets_, little streams of fresh water.\n\nPAGE 63. l. 217. Notice the reticence with which the mere fact of the\nmurder is stated--no details given. Keats wants the prevailing feeling\nto be one of pity rather than of horror.\n\nll. 219-20. _Ah . . . loneliness._ We perpetually come upon this old\nbelief--that the souls of the murdered cannot rest in peace. Cf.\n_Hamlet_, I. v. 8, &c.\n\nl. 221. _break-covert . . . sin._ The blood-hounds employed for tracking\ndown a murderer will find him under any concealment, and never rest till\nhe is found. So restless is the soul of the victim.\n\nl. 222. _They . . . water._ That water which had reflected the three\nfaces as they went across.\n\n_tease_, torment.\n\nl. 223. _convulsed spur_, they spurred their horses violently and\nuncertainly, scarce knowing what they did.\n\nl. 224. _Each richer . . . murderer._ This is what they have gained by\ntheir deed--the guilt of murder--that is all.\n\nl. 229. _stifling_: partly literal, since the widow's weed is\nclose-wrapping and voluminous--partly metaphorical, since the acceptance\nof fate stifles complaint.\n\nl. 230. _accursed bands._ So long as a man hopes he is not free, but at\nthe mercy of continual imaginings and fresh disappointments. When hope\nis laid aside, fear and disappointment go with it.\n\nPAGE 64. l. 241. _Selfishness, Love's cousin._ For the two aspects of\nlove, as a selfish and unselfish passion, see Blake's two poems, _Love\nseeketh only self to please_, and, _Love seeketh not itself to please_.\n\nl. 242. _single breast_, one-thoughted, being full of love for Lorenzo.\n\nPAGE 65. ll. 249 seq. Cf. Shelley's _Ode to the West Wind_.\n\nl. 252. _roundelay_, a dance in a circle.\n\nl. 259. _Striving . . . itself._ Her distrust of her brothers is shown\nin her effort not to betray her fears to them.\n\n_dungeon climes._ Wherever it is, it is a prison which keeps him from\nher. Cf. _Hamlet_, II. ii. 250-4.\n\nl. 262. _Hinnom's Vale_, the valley of Moloch's sacrifices, _Paradise\nLost_, i. 392-405.\n\nl. 264. _snowy shroud_, a truly prophetic dream.\n\nPAGE 66. ll. 267 seq. These comparisons help us to realize her\nexperience as sharp anguish, rousing her from the lethargy of despair,\nand endowing her for a brief space with almost supernatural energy and\nwillpower.\n\nPAGE 67. l. 286. _palsied Druid._ The Druids, or priests of ancient\nBritain, are always pictured as old men with long beards. The conception\nof such an old man, tremblingly trying to get music from a broken harp,\nadds to the pathos and mystery of the vision.\n\nl. 288. _Like . . . among._ Take this line word by word, and see how\nmany different ideas go to create the incomparably ghostly effect.\n\nll. 289 seq. Horror is skilfully kept from this picture and only tragedy\nleft. The horror is for the eyes of his murderers, not for his love.\n\nl. 292. _unthread . . . woof._ His narration and explanation of what has\ngone before is pictured as the disentangling of woven threads.\n\nl. 293. _darken'd._ In many senses, since their crime was (1) concealed\nfrom Isabella, (2) darkly evil, (3) done in the darkness of the wood.\n\nPAGE 68. ll. 305 seq. The whole sound of this stanza is that of a faint\nand far-away echo.\n\nl. 308. _knelling._ Every sound is like a death-bell to him.\n\nPAGE 69. l. 316. _That paleness._ Her paleness showing her great love\nfor him; and, moreover, indicating that they will soon be reunited.\n\nl. 317. _bright abyss_, the bright hollow of heaven.\n\nl. 322. _The atom . . . turmoil._ Every one must know the sensation of\nlooking into the darkness, straining one's eyes, until the darkness\nitself seems to be composed of moving atoms. The experience with which\nKeats, in the next lines, compares it, is, we are told, a common\nexperience in the early stages of consumption.\n\nPAGE 70. l. 334. _school'd my infancy._ She was as a child in her\nignorance of evil, and he has taught her the hard lesson that our misery\nis not always due to the dealings of a blind fate, but sometimes to the\ndeliberate crime and cruelty of those whom we have trusted.\n\nl. 344. _forest-hearse._ To Isabella the whole forest is but the\nreceptacle of her lover's corpse.\n\nPAGE 71. l. 347. _champaign_, country. We can picture Isabel, as they\n'creep' along, furtively glancing round, and then producing her knife\nwith a smile so terrible that the old nurse can only fear that she is\ndelirious, as her sudden vigour would also suggest.\n\nPAGE 72. st. xlvi-xlviii. These are the stanzas of which Lamb says,\n'there is nothing more awfully simple in diction, more nakedly grand and\nmoving in sentiment, in Dante, in Chaucer, or in Spenser'--and again,\nafter an appreciation of _Lamia_, whose fairy splendours are 'for\nyounger impressibilities', he reverts to them, saying: 'To _us_ an\nounce of feeling is worth a pound of fancy; and therefore we recur\nagain, with a warmer gratitude, to the story of Isabella and the pot of\nbasil, and those never-cloying stanzas which we have cited, and which we\nthink should disarm criticism, if it be not in its nature cruel; if it\nwould not deny to honey its sweetness, nor to roses redness, nor light\nto the stars in Heaven; if it would not bay the moon out of the skies,\nrather than acknowledge she is fair.'--_The New Times_, July 19, 1820.\n\nl. 361. _fresh-thrown mould_, a corroboration of her fears. Mr. Colvin\nhas pointed out how the horror is throughout relieved by the beauty of\nthe images called up by the similes, e.g. 'a crystal well,' 'a native\nlily of the dell.'\n\nl. 370. _Her silk . . . phantasies_, i.e. which she had embroidered\nfancifully for him.\n\nPAGE 73. l. 385. _wormy circumstance_, ghastly detail. Keats envies the\nun-self-conscious simplicity of the old ballad-writers in treating such\na theme as this, and bids the reader turn to Boccaccio, whose\ndescription of the scene he cannot hope to rival. Boccaccio writes: 'Nor\nhad she dug long before she found the body of her hapless lover, whereon\nas yet there was no trace of corruption or decay; and thus she saw\nwithout any manner of doubt that her vision was true. And so, saddest of\nwomen, knowing that she might not bewail him there, she would gladly, if\nshe could, have carried away the body and given it more honourable\nsepulture elsewhere; but as she might not do so, she took a knife, and,\nas best she could, severed the head from the trunk, and wrapped it in a\nnapkin and laid it in the lap of the maid; and having covered the rest\nof the corpse with earth, she left the spot, having been seen by none,\nand went home.'\n\nPAGE 74. l. 393. _Perséan sword._ The sword of sharpness given to\nPerseus by Hermes, with which he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa,\na monster with the head of a woman, and snaky locks, the sight of whom\nturned those who looked on her into stone. Perseus escaped by looking\nonly at her reflection in his shield.\n\nl. 406. _chilly_: tears, not passionate, but of cold despair.\n\nPAGE 75. l. 410. _pluck'd in Araby._ Cf. Lady Macbeth, 'All the perfumes\nof Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,' _Macbeth_, V. ii. 55.\n\nl. 412. _serpent-pipe_, twisted pipe.\n\nl. 416. _Sweet Basil_, a fragrant aromatic plant.\n\nll. 417-20. The repetition makes us feel the monotony of her days and\nnights of grief.\n\nPAGE 76. l. 432. _leafits_, leaflets, little leaves. An old botanical\nterm, but obsolete in Keats's time. Coleridge uses it in l. 65 of 'The\nNightingale' in _Lyrical Ballads_. In later editions he altered it to\n'leaflets'.\n\nl. 436. _Lethean_, in Hades, the dark underworld of the dead. Compare\nthe conception of melancholy in the _Ode on Melancholy_, where it is\nsaid to neighbour joy. Contrast Stanza lxi.\n\nl. 439. _cypress_, dark trees which in Italy are always planted in\ncemeteries. They stand by Keats's own grave.\n\nPAGE 77. l. 442. _Melpomene_, the Muse of tragedy.\n\nl. 451. _Baälites of pelf_, worshippers of ill-gotten gains.\n\nl. 453. _elf_, man. The word is used in this sense by Spenser in _The\nFaerie Queene_.\n\nPAGE 78. l. 467. _chapel-shrift_, confession. Cf. l. 64.\n\nll. 469-72. _And when . . . hair._ The pathos of this picture is\nintensified by its suggestions of the wife- and mother-hood which Isabel\ncan now never know. Cf. st. xlvii, where the idea is still more\nbeautifully suggested.\n\nPAGE 79. l. 475. _vile . . . spot._ The one touch of descriptive\nhorror--powerful in its reticence.\n\nPAGE 80. l. 489. _on . . . things._ Her love and her hope is with the\ndead rather than with the living.\n\nl. 492. _lorn voice._ Cf. st. xxxv. She is approaching her lover. Note\nthat in each case the metaphor is of a stringed instrument.\n\nl. 493. _Pilgrim in his wanderings._ Cf. st. i, 'a young palmer in\nLove's eye.'\n\nl. 503. _burthen_, refrain. Cf. _Tempest_, I. ii. Ariel's songs.\n\n\nNOTES ON THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.\n\nSee Introduction to _Isabella_ and _The Eve of St. Agnes_, p. 212.\n\nSt. Agnes was a martyr of the Christian Church who was beheaded just\noutside Rome in 304 because she refused to marry a Pagan, holding\nherself to be a bride of Christ. She was only 13--so small and slender\nthat the smallest fetters they could find slipped over her little wrists\nand fell to the ground. But they stripped, tortured, and killed her. A\nweek after her death her parents dreamed that they saw her in glory with\na white lamb, the sign of purity, beside her. Hence she is always\npictured with lambs (as her name signifies), and to the place of her\nmartyrdom two lambs are yearly taken on the anniversary and blessed.\nThen their wool is cut off and woven by the nuns into the archbishop's\ncloak, or pallium (see l. 70).\n\nFor the legend connected with the Eve of the Saint's anniversary, to\nwhich Keats refers, see st. vi.\n\n_Metre._ That of the _Faerie Queene_.\n\nPAGE 83. ll. 5-6. _told His rosary._ Cf. _Isabella_, ll. 87-8.\n\nl. 8. _without a death._ The 'flight to heaven' obscures the simile of\nthe incense, and his breath is thought of as a departing soul.\n\nPAGE 84. l. 12. _meagre, barefoot, wan._ Such a compression of a\ndescription into three bare epithets is frequent in Keats's poetry. He\nshows his marvellous power in the unerring choice of adjective; and\ntheir enumeration in this way has, from its very simplicity, an\nextraordinary force.\n\nl. 15. _purgatorial rails_, rails which enclose them in a place of\ntorture.\n\nl. 16. _dumb orat'ries._ The transference of the adjective from person\nto place helps to give us the mysterious sense of life in inanimate\nthings. Cf. _Hyperion_, iii. 8; _Ode to a Nightingale_, l. 66.\n\nl. 22. _already . . . rung._ He was dead to the world. But this hint\nshould also prepare us for the conclusion of the poem.\n\nPAGE 85. l. 31. _'gan to chide._ l. 32. _ready with their pride._ l. 34.\n_ever eager-eyed._ l. 36. _with hair . . . breasts._ As if trumpets,\nrooms, and carved angels were all alive. See Introduction, p. 212.\n\nl. 37. _argent_, silver. They were all glittering with rich robes and\narms.\n\nPAGE 86. l. 56. _yearning . . . pain_, expressing all the exquisite\nbeauty and pathos of the music; and moreover seeming to give it\nconscious life.\n\nPAGE 87. l. 64. _danc'd_, conveying all her restlessness and impatience\nas well as the lightness of her step.\n\nl. 70. _amort_, deadened, dull. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, IV. iii. 36,\n'What sweeting! all amort.'\n\nl. 71. See note on St. Agnes, p. 224.\n\nl. 77. _Buttress'd from moonlight._ A picture of the castle and of the\nnight, as well as of Porphyro's position.\n\nPAGE 88. ll. 82 seq. Compare the situation of these lovers with that of\nRomeo and Juliet.\n\nl. 90. _beldame_, old woman. Shakespeare generally uses the word in an\nuncomplimentary sense--'hag'--but it is not so used here. The word is\nused by Spenser in its derivative sense, 'Fair lady,' _Faerie Queene_,\nii. 43.\n\nPAGE 89. l. 110. _Brushing . . . plume._ This line both adds to our\npicture of Porphyro and vividly brings before us the character of the\nplace he was entering--unsuited to the splendid cavalier.\n\nl. 113. _Pale, lattic'd, chill._ Cf. l. 12, note.\n\nl. 115. _by the holy loom_, on which the nuns spin. See l. 71 and note\non St. Agnes, p. 224.\n\nPAGE 90. l. 120. _Thou must . . . sieve._ Supposed to be one of the\ncommonest signs of supernatural power. Cf. _Macbeth_, I. iii. 8.\n\nl. 133. _brook_, check. An incorrect use of the word, which really means\n_bear_ or _permit_.\n\nPAGE 92. ll. 155-6. _churchyard . . . toll._ Unconscious prophecy. Cf.\n_The Bedesman_, l. 22.\n\nl. 168. _While . . . coverlet._ All the wonders of Madeline's\nimagination.\n\nl. 171. _Since Merlin . . . debt._ Referring to the old legend that\nMerlin had for father an incubus or demon, and was himself a demon of\nevil, though his innate wickedness was driven out by baptism. Thus his\n'debt' to the demon was his existence, which he paid when Vivien\ncompassed his destruction by means of a spell which he had taught her.\nKeats refers to the storm which is said to have raged that night, which\nTennyson also describes in _Merlin and Vivien_. The source whence the\nstory came to Keats has not been ascertained.\n\nPAGE 93. l. 173. _cates_, provisions. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, II. i.\n187:--\n\n     Kate of Kate Hall--my super-dainty Kate,\n     For dainties are all cates.\n\nWe still use the verb 'to cater' as in l. 177.\n\nl. 174. _tambour frame_, embroidery-frame.\n\nl. 185. _espied_, spying. _Dim_, because it would be from a dark corner;\nalso the spy would be but dimly visible to her old eyes.\n\nl. 187. _silken . . . chaste._ Cf. ll. 12, 113.\n\nl. 188. _covert_, hiding. Cf. _Isabella_, l. 221.\n\nPAGE 94. l. 198. _fray'd_, frightened.\n\nl. 203. _No uttered . . . betide._ Another of the conditions of the\nvision was evidently silence.\n\nPAGE 95. ll. 208 seq. Compare Coleridge's description of Christabel's\nroom: _Christabel_, i. 175-83.\n\nl. 218. _gules_, blood-red.\n\nPAGE 96. l. 226. _Vespers._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 21, ll. 226-34. See\nIntroduction, p. 213.\n\nl. 237. _poppied_, because of the sleep-giving property of the\npoppy-heads.\n\nl. 241. _Clasp'd . . . pray._ The sacredness of her beauty is felt here.\n\n_missal_, prayer-book.\n\nPAGE 97. l. 247. _To wake . . . tenderness._ He waited to hear, by the\nsound of her breathing, that she was asleep.\n\nl. 250. _Noiseless . . . wilderness._ We picture a man creeping over a\nwide plain, fearing that any sound he makes will arouse some wild beast\nor other frightful thing.\n\nl. 257. _Morphean._ Morpheus was the god of sleep.\n\n_amulet_, charm.\n\nl. 258. _boisterous . . . festive._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187.\n\nl. 261. _and . . . gone._ The cadence of this line is peculiarly adapted\nto express a dying-away of sound.\n\nPAGE 98. l. 266. _soother_, sweeter, more delightful. An incorrect use\nof the word. Sooth really means truth.\n\nl. 267. _tinct_, flavoured; usually applied to colour, not to taste.\n\nl. 268. _argosy_, merchant-ship. Cf. _Merchant of Venice_, I. i. 9,\n'Your argosies with portly sail.'\n\nPAGE 99. l. 287. Before he desired a 'Morphean amulet'; now he wishes to\nrelease his lady's eyes from the charm of sleep.\n\nl. 288. _woofed phantasies._ Fancies confused as woven threads. Cf.\n_Isabella_, l. 292.\n\nl. 292. '_La belle . . . mercy._' This stirred Keats's imagination, and\nhe produced the wonderful, mystic ballad of this title (see p. 213).\n\nl. 296. _affrayed_, frightened. Cf. l. 198.\n\nPAGE 100. ll. 298-9. Cf. Donne's poem, _The Dream_:--\n\n     My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.\n\nl. 300. _painful change_, his paleness.\n\nl. 311. _pallid, chill, and drear._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187, 258.\n\nPAGE 101. l. 323. _Love's alarum_, warning them to speed away.\n\nl. 325. _flaw_, gust of wind. Cf. _Coriolanus_, V. iii. 74; _Hamlet_,\nV. i. 239.\n\nl. 333. _unpruned_, not trimmed.\n\nPAGE 102. l. 343. _elfin-storm._ The beldame has suggested that he must\nbe 'liege-lord of all the elves and fays'.\n\nl. 351. _o'er . . . moors._ A happy suggestion of a warmer clime.\n\nPAGE 103. l. 355. _darkling._ Cf. _King Lear_, I. iv. 237: 'So out went\nthe candle and we were left darkling.' Cf. _Ode to a Nightingale_, l.\n51.\n\nl. 360. _And . . . floor._ There is the very sound of the wind in this\nline.\n\nPAGE 104. ll. 375-8. _Angela . . . cold._ The death of these two leaves\nus with the thought of a young, bright world for the lovers to enjoy;\nwhilst at the same time it completes the contrast, which the first\nintroduction of the old bedesman suggested, between the old, the poor,\nand the joyless, and the young, the rich, and the happy.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Ode To A Nightingale",
    "body": "  1.\n\n  My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains\n    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,\n  Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains\n    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:\n  'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,\n    But being too happy in thine happiness,--\n      That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,\n          In some melodious plot\n    Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,\n      Singest of summer in full-throated ease.\n\n  2.\n\n  O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been\n    Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,\n  Tasting of Flora and the country green,\n    Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!\n  O for a beaker full of the warm South,\n    Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,\n      With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,\n          And purple-stained mouth;\n    That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,\n      And with thee fade away into the forest dim:\n\n  3.\n\n  Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget\n    What thou among the leaves hast never known,\n  The weariness, the fever, and the fret\n    Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;\n  Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,\n    Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;\n      Where but to think is to be full of sorrow\n          And leaden-eyed despairs,\n    Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,\n      Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.\n\n  4.\n\n  Away! away! for I will fly to thee,\n    Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,\n  But on the viewless wings of Poesy,\n    Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:\n  Already with thee! tender is the night,\n    And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,\n      Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;\n          But here there is no light,\n    Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown\n      Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.\n\n  5.\n\n  I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,\n    Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,\n  But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet\n    Wherewith the seasonable month endows\n  The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;\n    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;\n      Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;\n          And mid-May's eldest child,\n    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,\n      The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.\n\n  6.\n\n  Darkling I listen; and, for many a time\n    I have been half in love with easeful Death,\n  Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,\n    To take into the air my quiet breath;\n  Now more than ever seems it rich to die,\n    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,\n      While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad\n          In such an ecstasy!\n    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--\n      To thy high requiem become a sod.\n\n  7.\n\n  Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!\n    No hungry generations tread thee down;\n  The voice I hear this passing night was heard\n    In ancient days by emperor and clown:\n  Perhaps the self-same song that found a path\n    Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,\n      She stood in tears amid the alien corn;\n          The same that oft-times hath\n    Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam\n      Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.\n\n  8.\n\n  Forlorn! the very word is like a bell\n    To toll me back from thee to my sole self!\n  Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well\n    As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.\n  Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades\n    Past the near meadows, over the still stream,\n      Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep\n          In the next valley-glades:\n    Was it a vision, or a waking dream?\n      Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Ode On A Grecian Urn",
    "body": "  1.\n\n  Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,\n    Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,\n  Sylvan historian, who canst thus express\n    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:\n  What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape\n    Of deities or mortals, or of both,\n      In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?\n    What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?\n  What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?\n      What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?\n\n  2.\n\n  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard\n    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;\n  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,\n    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:\n  Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave\n    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;\n      Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,\n  Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;\n    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,\n      For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!\n\n  3.\n\n  Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed\n    Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;\n  And, happy melodist, unwearied,\n    For ever piping songs for ever new;\n  More happy love! more happy, happy love!\n    For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,\n      For ever panting, and for ever young;\n  All breathing human passion far above,\n    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,\n      A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.\n\n  4.\n\n  Who are these coming to the sacrifice?\n    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,\n  Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,\n    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?\n  What little town by river or sea shore,\n    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,\n      Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?\n  And, little town, thy streets for evermore\n    Will silent be; and not a soul to tell\n      Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.\n\n  5.\n\n  O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede\n    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,\n  With forest branches and the trodden weed;\n    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought\n  As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!\n    When old age shall this generation waste,\n      Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe\n  Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,\n    \"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,\"--that is all\n      Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Ode To Psyche",
    "body": "  O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung\n    By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,\n  And pardon that thy secrets should be sung\n    Even into thine own soft-conched ear:\n  Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see\n    The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?\n  I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,\n    And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,\n  Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side\n    In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof\n    Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran\n          A brooklet, scarce espied:\n  'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,\n    Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,\n  They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;\n    Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;\n    Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,\n  As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,\n  And ready still past kisses to outnumber\n    At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:\n        The winged boy I knew;\n    But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?\n        His Psyche true!\n\n  O latest born and loveliest vision far\n    Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!\n  Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,\n    Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;\n  Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,\n      Nor altar heap'd with flowers;\n  Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan\n      Upon the midnight hours;\n  No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet\n    From chain-swung censer teeming;\n  No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat\n    Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.\n\n  O brightest! though too late for antique vows,\n    Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,\n  When holy were the haunted forest boughs,\n    Holy the air, the water, and the fire;\n  Yet even in these days so far retir'd\n    From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,\n    Fluttering among the faint Olympians,\n  I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.\n  So let me be thy choir, and make a moan\n      Upon the midnight hours;\n  Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet\n    From swinged censer teeming;\n  Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat\n    Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.\n\n  Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane\n    In some untrodden region of my mind,\n  Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,\n    Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:\n  Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees\n    Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;\n  And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,\n    The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;\n  And in the midst of this wide quietness\n  A rosy sanctuary will I dress\n  With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,\n    With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,\n  With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,\n    Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:\n  And there shall be for thee all soft delight\n    That shadowy thought can win,\n  A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,\n    To let the warm Love in!",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Fancy",
    "body": "  Ever let the Fancy roam,\n  Pleasure never is at home:\n  At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,\n  Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;\n  Then let winged Fancy wander\n  Through the thought still spread beyond her:\n  Open wide the mind's cage-door,\n  She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.\n  O sweet Fancy! let her loose;\n  Summer's joys are spoilt by use,\n  And the enjoying of the Spring\n  Fades as does its blossoming;\n  Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,\n  Blushing through the mist and dew,\n  Cloys with tasting: What do then?\n  Sit thee by the ingle, when\n  The sear faggot blazes bright,\n  Spirit of a winter's night;\n  When the soundless earth is muffled,\n  And the caked snow is shuffled\n  From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;\n  When the Night doth meet the Noon\n  In a dark conspiracy\n  To banish Even from her sky.\n  Sit thee there, and send abroad,\n  With a mind self-overaw'd,\n  Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!\n  She has vassals to attend her:\n  She will bring, in spite of frost,\n  Beauties that the earth hath lost;\n  She will bring thee, all together,\n  All delights of summer weather;\n  All the buds and bells of May,\n  From dewy sward or thorny spray\n  All the heaped Autumn's wealth,\n  With a still, mysterious stealth:\n  She will mix these pleasures up\n  Like three fit wines in a cup,\n  And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear\n  Distant harvest-carols clear;\n  Rustle of the reaped corn;\n  Sweet birds antheming the morn:\n  And, in the same moment--hark!\n  'Tis the early April lark,\n  Or the rooks, with busy caw,\n  Foraging for sticks and straw.\n  Thou shalt, at one glance, behold\n  The daisy and the marigold;\n  White-plum'd lilies, and the first\n  Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;\n  Shaded hyacinth, alway\n  Sapphire queen of the mid-May;\n  And every leaf, and every flower\n  Pearled with the self-same shower.\n  Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep\n  Meagre from its celled sleep;\n  And the snake all winter-thin\n  Cast on sunny bank its skin;\n  Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see\n  Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,\n  When the hen-bird's wing doth rest\n  Quiet on her mossy nest;\n  Then the hurry and alarm\n  When the bee-hive casts its swarm;\n  Acorns ripe down-pattering,\n  While the autumn breezes sing.\n\n    Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;\n  Every thing is spoilt by use:\n  Where's the cheek that doth not fade,\n  Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid\n  Whose lip mature is ever new?\n  Where's the eye, however blue,\n  Doth not weary? Where's the face\n  One would meet in every place?\n  Where's the voice, however soft,\n  One would hear so very oft?\n  At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth\n  Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.\n  Let, then, winged Fancy find\n  Thee a mistress to thy mind:\n  Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,\n  Ere the God of Torment taught her\n  How to frown and how to chide;\n  With a waist and with a side\n  White as Hebe's, when her zone\n  Slipt its golden clasp, and down\n  Fell her kirtle to her feet,\n  While she held the goblet sweet,\n  And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh\n  Of the Fancy's silken leash;\n  Quickly break her prison-string\n  And such joys as these she'll bring.--\n  Let the winged Fancy roam\n  Pleasure never is at home.",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Ode (Bards of Passion and of Mirth)",
    "body": "['BARDS OF PASSION AND OF MIRTH'].\n\nPAGE 128. l. 1. _Bards_, poets and singers.\n\nl. 8. _parle_, French _parler_. Cf. _Hamlet_, I. i. 62.\n\nl. 12. _Dian's fawns._ Diana was the goddess of hunting.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Lines On The Mermaid Tavern",
    "body": "The Mermaid Tavern was an old inn in Bread Street, Cheapside. Tradition\nsays that the literary club there was established by Sir Walter Raleigh\nin 1603. In any case it was, in Shakespeare's time, frequented by the\nchief writers of the day, amongst them Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher,\nSelden, Carew, Donne, and Shakespeare himself. Beaumont, in a poetical\nepistle to Ben Jonson, writes:\n\n     What things have we seen\n     Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been\n     So nimble and so full of subtle flame,\n     As if that any one from whence they came\n     Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,\n     And has resolved to live a fool the rest\n     Of his dull life.\n\n\nNOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.\n\nPAGE 131. l. 10. _bold Robin Hood._ Cf. _Robin Hood_, p. 133.\n\nl. 12. _bowse_, drink.\n\nPAGE 132. ll. 16-17. _an astrologer's . . . story._ The astrologer would\nrecord, on parchment, what he had seen in the heavens.\n\nl. 22. _The Mermaid . . . Zodiac._ The zodiac was an imaginary belt\nacross the heavens within which the sun and planets were supposed to\nmove. It was divided into twelve parts corresponding to the twelve\nmonths of the year, according to the position of the moon when full.\nEach of these parts had a sign by which it was known, and the sign of\nthe tenth was a fish-tailed goat, to which Keats refers as the Mermaid.\nThe word _zodiac_ comes from the Greek +zôdion+, meaning\na little animal, since originally all the signs were animals.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Robin Hood",
    "body": "TO A FRIEND.\n\n\n  No! those days are gone away,\n  And their hours are old and gray,\n  And their minutes buried all\n  Under the down-trodden pall\n  Of the leaves of many years:\n  Many times have winter's shears,\n  Frozen North, and chilling East,\n  Sounded tempests to the feast\n  Of the forest's whispering fleeces,\n  Since men knew nor rent nor leases.\n\n    No, the bugle sounds no more,\n  And the twanging bow no more;\n  Silent is the ivory shrill\n  Past the heath and up the hill;\n  There is no mid-forest laugh,\n  Where lone Echo gives the half\n  To some wight, amaz'd to hear\n  Jesting, deep in forest drear.\n\n    On the fairest time of June\n  You may go, with sun or moon,\n  Or the seven stars to light you,\n  Or the polar ray to right you;\n  But you never may behold\n  Little John, or Robin bold;\n  Never one, of all the clan,\n  Thrumming on an empty can\n  Some old hunting ditty, while\n  He doth his green way beguile\n  To fair hostess Merriment,\n  Down beside the pasture Trent;\n  For he left the merry tale\n  Messenger for spicy ale.\n\n    Gone, the merry morris din;\n  Gone, the song of Gamelyn;\n  Gone, the tough-belted outlaw\n  Idling in the \"grenè shawe;\"\n  All are gone away and past!\n  And if Robin should be cast\n  Sudden from his turfed grave,\n  And if Marian should have\n  Once again her forest days,\n  She would weep, and he would craze:\n  He would swear, for all his oaks,\n  Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,\n  Have rotted on the briny seas;\n  She would weep that her wild bees\n  Sang not to her--strange! that honey\n  Can't be got without hard money!\n\n    So it is: yet let us sing,\n  Honour to the old bow-string!\n  Honour to the bugle-horn!\n  Honour to the woods unshorn!\n  Honour to the Lincoln green!\n  Honour to the archer keen!\n  Honour to tight little John,\n  And the horse he rode upon!\n  Honour to bold Robin Hood,\n  Sleeping in the underwood!\n  Honour to maid Marian,\n  And to all the Sherwood-clan!\n  Though their days have hurried by\n  Let us two a burden try.",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "To Autumn",
    "body": "  1.\n\n  Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,\n    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;\n  Conspiring with him how to load and bless\n    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;\n  To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,\n    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;\n      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells\n  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,\n    And still more, later flowers for the bees,\n    Until they think warm days will never cease,\n      For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.\n\n  2.\n\n  Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?\n    Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find\n  Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,\n    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;\n  Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,\n    Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook\n      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:\n  And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep\n    Steady thy laden head across a brook;\n    Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,\n      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.\n\n  3.\n\n  Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?\n    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--\n  While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,\n    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;\n  Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn\n    Among the river sallows, borne aloft\n      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;\n  And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;\n    Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft\n    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;\n      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  },
  {
    "title": "Ode On Melancholy",
    "body": "  1.\n\n  No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist\n    Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;\n  Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd\n    By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;\n  Make not your rosary of yew-berries,\n    Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be\n      Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl\n  A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;\n    For shade to shade will come too drowsily,\n      And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.\n\n  2.\n\n  But when the melancholy fit shall fall\n    Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,\n  That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,\n    And hides the green hill in an April shroud;\n  Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,\n    Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,\n      Or on the wealth of globed peonies;\n  Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,\n    Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,\n      And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.\n\n  3.\n\n  She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;\n    And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips\n  Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,\n    Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:\n  Ay, in the very temple of Delight\n    Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,\n      Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue\n  Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;\n    His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,\n      And be among her cloudy trophies hung.",
    "author": "John Keats",
    "source": "Poems Published in 1820",
    "period": "1820"
  }
]