Part 76 (2/2)
The first book is merely a long introduction, but it opens with unforgettable lines--
”A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pa.s.s into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”
Then the poet tells us what are the things of beauty of which he thinks.
”Such the sun, the moon, Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair must-rose blooms; And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read; An endless fountain of immortal drink Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.”
But although throughout the long poem there are lovely pa.s.sages, and one or two most beautiful lyrics, the critics of the day saw only the faults of which Endymion is full, and the poem was received with a storm of abuse.
Soon after Keats published this poem, he, with a friend, set out on a walking tour to the Lake Country and to Scotland. This was Keats's first sight of real mountains, and he gloried in the grand scenery, but said ”human nature is finer.” When Keats set out there was not a sign of the invalid about him. He walked twenty or thirty miles a day and cheerfully bore the discomforts of travel. But the tour proved too much for his strength. He caught a bad cold and sore throat, and was ordered home by the doctor. He went by boat, arriving brown, shabby, and almost shoeless, among his London friends.
Keats never quite recovered his good health, and other griefs and troubles crowded in upon him. It was after his return from this tour that his dearly loved brother, Tom, died. Cruel criticisms of his poetry hurt him at the same time, and he was in trouble about money, for the family guardian had not proved a good manager. And now to this already overcharged heart something else was added. Keats fell in love. The lady he loved was young and beautiful, but commonplace. Keats himself describes her when he first met her as ”beautiful and elegant, graceful, silly, fas.h.i.+onable, and strange.” Her beauty and strangeness won for her a way to the poet's heart. Love, however, brought to him no joyful rest, but rather pa.s.sionate, jealous restlessness. Yet in spite of all his troubles, Keats continued to write poems which will ever be remembered as among the most beautiful in our language.
Like Scott and Byron, Keats wrote metrical romances. One of these, Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, is founded upon a tale of Boccaccio, that old master to whom so many poets have gone for inspiration. In Keats's romances there is no war-cry, no clash of swords as in Scott's, and the luxury is altogether different from Byron's. There is in them that trembling sense of beauty which opens to us wide windows into fairyland. They are simple stories veiled in the glamour of lovely words, and full of the rich color and the magic of the middle ages. But here as elsewhere in Keats's poetry what we lack is the touch of human sorrow. Keats wrote of nature with all Wordsworth's insight and truth, and with greater magic of words. He understood the mystery of nature, but of the mystery of the heart of man it was not his to sing. He lived in a world apart. The terror and beauty of real life hardly touched him. Alone of all the poets of his day he was unmoved by the French Revolution, and all that it stood for.
Some day you will read Keats's metrical romances, and now I will give you a few verses from some of his odes, for in his odes we have Keats's poetry at its very best. Here are some verses from his ode On a Grecian Urn. You have seen such a vase, perhaps, with beautiful sculptured figures on it, dancing maidens and piping shepherds.
”Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
”Ah, happy, happy bought! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human pa.s.sion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
”O Attic shape! Fair att.i.tude! with brede*
Of marble men and maidens over-wrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
*Embroidery.
In these last lines we have the dominant note in Keats's song, beauty and the love of beauty. What is true must be beautiful, and just in so far as we move away from truth we lose what is beautiful. Nothing is so ugly as a lie.
And now remembering how Sh.e.l.ley sang of the skylark you will like to read how his brother poet sang of the nightingale.
”My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
”Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod.
”Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this pa.s.sing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft times hath Charm'd magic cas.e.m.e.nts, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
”Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! Adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley glades; Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
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