The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats
Читать онлайн книгу.
pester humankind.
And on the other side, outspread, is seen
Ocean’s blue mantle streak’d with purple, and green.
Now ’tis I see a canvass’d ship, and now
Mark the bright silver curling round her prow.
I see the lark down-dropping to his nest.
And the broad winged sea-gull never at rest;
For when no more he spreads his feathers free,
His breast is dancing on the restless sea.
Now I direct my eyes into the west,
Which at this moment is in sunbeams drest:
Why westward turn? ’Twas but to say adieu!
’Twas but to kiss my hand, dear George, to you!
August, 1816.
To My Brother George
Many the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kist away the tears
That fill’d the eyes of morn; — the laurel’d peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean: —
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, —
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what has been.
E’en now, dear George, while this for you I write,
Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping
So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,
And she her half-discover’d revels keeping.
But what, without the social thought of thee,
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?
A Prophecy: to George Keats in America
’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 -
Though the linen that will be Its swathe, is on the cotton tree -
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly2 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!
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
My spirit is too weak - mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep.
And each imagin’d pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die
Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.
Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,
Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an undescribable feud: So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time - with a billowy main -
A sun - a shadow of a magnitude.
Song: Spirit here that reignest!
Written on a blank page in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Works, between
‘Cupid’s Revenge’ and ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’
I
Spirit here that reignest!
Spirit here that painest!
Spirit here that burnest!
Spirit here that mournest!
Spirit, I bow
My forehead low,
Enshaded with thy pinions.
Spirit, I look
All passion-struck
Into thy pale dominions.
II
Spirit here that laughest!
Spirit here that quaffest!
Spirit here that dancest!
Noble soul that prancest!