The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies. John Keats
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staid her vixen fingers for his sake,
He was so very ugly: then she took
Her pocket glass mirror and began to look
First at herself and [then] at him and then
She smil’d at her own beauteous face again.
Yet for all this – for all her pretty face
She took it in her head to see the place.
Women gain little from experience
Either in Lovers, husbands or expense.
The more the beauty, the more fortune too,
Beauty before the wide world never knew.
So each fair reasons – tho’ it oft miscarries.
She thought her pretty face would please the faeries.
‘My darling Ape I won’t whip you today -
Give me the Picklock, sirrah, and go play.’
They all three wept – but counsel was as vain
As crying cup biddy”’ to drops of rain.
Yet lingeringly did the sad Ape forth draw
The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.
The Princess took it and dismounting straight
Trip’d in blue silver’d slippers to the gate
And touch’d the wards, the door full courteously
Opened – she enter’d with her servants three.
Again it clos’d and there was nothing seen
But the Mule grazing on the herbage green.
The Mule no sooner saw himself alone
Than he prick’d up his ears – and said ‘well done!
At least, unhappy Prince, I may be free -
No more a Princess shall side-saddle me.
O O King of Othaietè – tho’ a Mule
“Aye every inch a King” – tho’ “Fortune’s fool”
Well done – for by what Mr Dwarfy said
I I would not give a sixpence for her head.’
Even as he spake he trotted in high glee
To the knotty side of an old pollard tree
And rub [‘d] his sides against the mossed bark
Till his girths burst and left him naked stark
Except his bridle – how get rid of that,
Buckled and tied with many a twist and plait?
At last it struck him to pretend to sleep
And then the thievish monkeys down would creep
And filch the unpleasant trammels quite away.
No sooner thought of than adown he lay,
Sham’d a good snore – the monkey-men descended
And whom they thought to injure they befriended.
They hung his bridle on a topmost bough
And of[f] he went, run, trot, or anyhow -
Brown is gone to bed – and I am tired of rhyming
To a Young Lady who Sent Me a Laurel Crown
Fresh morning gusts have blown away all fear
From my glad bosom, – now from gloominess
I mount for ever – not an atom less
Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.
No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here
In the Sun’s eye, and ‘gainst my temples press
Apollo’s very leaves, woven to bless
By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.
Lo! who dares say, ‘Do this’? Who dares call down
My will from its high purpose? Who say, ‘Stand,’
Or ‘Go’? This mighty moment I would frown
On abject Caesars – not the stoutest band
Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown:
Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!
What the Thrush Said
Lines From a Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds
O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind.
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops ‘mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phoebus was away.
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge – I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge – I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.
Song: The stranger lighted from his steed
The stranger lighted from his steed.
And ere he spake a word,
He seiz’d my lady’s lily hand,
And kiss’d it all unheard.
The stranger walk’d into the hall,
And ere he spake a word,
He kiss’d my lady’s cherry lips,
And kiss’d ’em all unheard.
The stranger walk’d into the bower, -
But my lady first did go, -
Aye hand in hand into the bower,
Where my lord’s roses blow.
My lady’s maid had a silken scarf,
And a golden ring had she,
And a kiss from the stranger, as off he went
Again on his fair palfrey.
Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!
Song: I had a dove and the sweet dove died
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