Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends. John Keats
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of many years.
Many times have Winter’s shears,
Frozen North and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest’s whispering fleeces,
Since men paid no rent on Leases.
No! the Bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill
Past the heath and up the Hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone Echo gives the half
To some wight amaz’d to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.
On the fairest time of June
You may go with Sun or Moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John or Robin bold;
Never any of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair Hostess Merriment
Down beside the pasture Trent,
For he left the merry tale,
Messenger for spicy ale.
Gone the merry morris din,
Gone the song of Gamelyn,
Gone the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the “grenè shawe”:
All are gone away and past!
And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his turfed grave, And if Marian should have Once again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks, Fall’n beneath the Dock-yard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her—“strange that honey Can’t be got without hard money!” So it is! yet let us sing, Honour to the old bow-string, Honour to the bugle-horn, Honour to the woods unshorn, Honour to the Lincoln green, Honour to the archer keen, Honour to tight little John, And the horse he rode upon: Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood! Honour to maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan— Though their days have hurried by Let us two a burden try.
I hope you will like them—they are at least written in the Spirit of Outlawry. Here are the Mermaid lines,
Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field, or mossy cavern,
Fairer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine Host’s Canary wine?
Or are fruits of paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of Venison? O generous food
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would with his Maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.
I have heard that, on a day,
Mine host’s sign-board flew away,
No body knew whither, till
An astrologer’s old Quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old-sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack,
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. Souls of Poets dead and gone, Are the winds a sweeter home? Richer is uncellar’d cavern, Than the merry mermaid Tavern?[46]
I will call on you at 4 to-morrow, and we will trudge together, for it is not the thing to be a stranger in the Land of Harpsicols. I hope also to bring you my 2nd Book. In the hope that these Scribblings will be some amusement for you this Evening, I remain, copying on the Hill,
Your sincere friend and Co-scribbler
John Keats.
XXXV.—TO JOHN TAYLOR.
Fleet Street, Thursday Morn [February 5, 1818].
My dear Taylor—I have finished copying my Second Book—but I want it for one day to overlook it. And moreover this day I have very particular employ in the affair of Cripps—so I trespass on your indulgence, and take advantage of your good nature. You shall hear from me or see me soon. I will tell Reynolds of your engagement to-morrow.
Yours unfeignedly
John Keats.
XXXVI.—TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Hampstead, Saturday Night [February 14, 1818].
My dear Brothers—When once a man delays a letter beyond the proper time, he delays it longer, for one or two reasons—first, because he must begin in a very common-place style, that is to say, with an excuse; and secondly things and circumstances become so jumbled in his mind, that he knows not what, or what not, he has said in his last—I shall visit you as soon as I have copied my poem all out, I am now much beforehand with the printer, they have done none yet, and I am half afraid they will let half the season by before the printing. I am determined they shall not trouble me when I have copied it all.—Horace Smith has lent me his manuscript called “Nehemiah Muggs, an exposure of the Methodists”—perhaps I may send you a few extracts—Hazlitt’s last Lecture was on Thomson, Cowper, and Crabbe, he praised Thomson and Cowper but he gave Crabbe an unmerciful licking—I think Hunt’s article of Fazio—no it was not, but I saw Fazio the first night, it hung rather heavily on me—I am in the high way of being introduced to a squad of people, Peter Pindar, Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Scott—Mr. Robinson a great friend of Coleridge’s called on me.[47] Richards tells me that my poems are known in the west country, and that he saw a very clever copy of verses, headed with a Motto from my Sonnet to George—Honours rush so thickly upon me that I shall not be able to bear up against them. What think you—am I to be crowned in the Capitol, am I to be made a Mandarin—No! I am to be invited, Mrs. Hunt tells me, to a party at Ollier’s, to keep Shakspeare’s birthday—Shakspeare would stare to see me there.[48] The Wednesday before last Shelley, Hunt and I wrote each a Sonnet on the River Nile, some day you shall read them all. I saw a sheet of Endymion, and have all reason to suppose they will soon get it done, there shall be nothing wanting on my part. I have been writing at intervals many songs and Sonnets, and I long to be at Teignmouth, to read them over to you: however I think I had better wait till this Book is off my mind; it will not be long first.
Reynolds has been writing two very capital articles, in the Yellow Dwarf, on popular Preachers—All the talk here is about Dr. Croft the Duke of Devon etc.
Your most affectionate Brother
John.
XXXVII.—TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Hampstead, February 19, 1818.]
My dear Reynolds—I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant