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Cornell University Library 
 PR 4836.B99 
 
 A day with John Keats. 
 
 3 1924 013 490 796 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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Painting by E. W. Uaslehust. 
 
 KEATS' HOME AT HAMPSTEAD 
 
 "About eight o'clock one morning in early 
 summer, a young man may be seen sauntering to and 
 fro in the garden at Wentworth Place . . . The 
 clean countrified air of Hampstead comes with sweet 
 freshness through the garden." 
 
E'WM^SLEHUS-r 
 
A DAY WITH 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 BY MAY B^RON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HODDER y STOUGHTON 
 

 In tJie same Series. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Brovming. 
 
 E. B. Brovming. 
 
 Burns. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Longfellow, 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 Rossetti. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Coleridge, 
 
 Morris, 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Whitman. 
 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS. 
 
 ^BOUT eight o'clock one morning 
 in early summer, a young man 
 may be seen sauntering to and fro 
 in the garden of Wentworth Place, 
 Hampstead. Wentworth Place 
 consists of two houses only; in the 
 first, John Keats is established 
 along with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. 
 The second is inhabited by a Mrs. Brawne and 
 her family. They are wooden houses, with 
 festooning draperies of foliage: and the clean 
 countrified air of Hampstead comes with sweet 
 freshness through the gardens, and fills the 
 young man with ecstatic delight. He gazes 
 around him, with his weak dark eyes, upon the 
 sky, the flowers, the various minutiae of nature 
 which mean so much to him: and although he 
 has severely tried a never robust physique 
 by sitting up half the night in study, a new 
 exhilaration now throbs through his veins. For, 
 in his own words, he loves the principle of 
 beauty in all things: and he repeats to himself. 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 as he loiters up and down in the sunshine, the 
 lines into which he has crystallized, for all time, 
 sensations similar to those of the present: — 
 
 A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
 
 Its loveliness increases; it will never 
 
 Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
 
 A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
 
 Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet 
 
 breathing. 
 Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
 A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
 Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
 Of noble natures, of the gloomy days. 
 Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways 
 Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
 Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
 From our dark spirits. 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 musk-rose blooms: 
 And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
 We have imagined for the mighty dead; 
 AH lovely tales that we have heard or read: 
 
 6 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
 Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 
 Nor do we merely feel these essences 
 For one short hour; no, even as the trees 
 That whisper round a temple become soon 
 Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, 
 The passion poesy, glories infinite. 
 Haunt us till they become a cheering light 
 Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast. 
 That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, 
 They alway must be with us, or we die. 
 
 Endymion. 
 
 Yet John Keats is in some respects out of 
 keeping with the magnificent phraseology of 
 which he is the mouthpiece. "Little Keats," 
 as his fellow medical students termed him, is a 
 small, undersized man, not over five feet high 
 — the shoulders too broad, the legs too spare 
 — "death in his hand," as Coleridge said, the 
 slack moist hand of the incipient consumptive. 
 The only "thing of beauty" about him is his 
 face. "It is a face," to quote his friend Leigh 
 Hunt, "in which energy and sensibility" (i.e., 
 sensitiveness) "are remarkably mixed up — an 
 eager power, wrecked and made impatient by 
 ill-health. Every feature at once strongly cut 
 
 7 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 and delicately alive." There is that femininity 
 in the cast of his features, which Coleridge 
 classed as an attribute of true genius. His 
 beautiful brown hair falls loosely over those 
 eyes, large, dark, glowing, which appeal to all 
 observers by their mystical illumination of 
 rapture — eyes which seem as though they had 
 been dwelling on some glorious sight — which 
 have, as Haydon said, "an inward look per- 
 fectly divine, like a Delphian priestess who saw 
 visions." 
 
 And he is seeing visions all the while. 
 Some chance sight or sound has wrapt him 
 away from the young greenness of the May 
 morning, and plunged him deep into the opulent 
 colour of September. His prophetic eye sees 
 all the apple-buds as golden orbs of fruit, and 
 the swallows, that now build beneath the eaves, 
 making ready for their departure. And these 
 future splendours shape themselves into lines as 
 richly coloured. 
 
 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ! 
 
 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
 Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
 
 With fruit the vines that round the thatch* 
 eaves run; 
 
 8 
 
Painting by W. J. Neatby, AUTtfMN 
 
 Where are the songs of Spring ? Ay, where are they ? 
 
 Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, — 
 While barrfed clouds bloom the soft-dying day. 
 
 And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 
 Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn 
 
 Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
 Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies . . . 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
 
 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
 With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
 
 And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
 
 Until they think warm days will never cease. 
 For Summer has o'er-brimmed their 
 clammy cells. 
 
 Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
 
 Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
 Thee sitting careless on a granary floor. 
 
 Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
 Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep. 
 
 Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while 
 thy hook 
 Spares the next swath and all its twined 
 flowers; 
 And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
 Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
 Or by a cider-press, with patient look. 
 
 Thou watchest the last oozings, hours 
 by hours. 
 
 Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are 
 they? 
 Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
 
 And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
 
 Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
 
 Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
 
 Or sinking as the light wind lives or 
 
 dies; 
 
 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly 
 
 bourn; 
 
 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble 
 
 soft 
 
 The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft, 
 
 And gathering swallows twitter in the 
 
 skies. 
 
 Autumn. 
 
 The voice of Charles Brown at the open 
 window, hailing him cheerily, breaks the spell; 
 Keats goes in, and they sit down together to a 
 simple breakfast-table, and Brown "quizzes" 
 Keats, as the current phrase goes, on his in- 
 veterate abstractedness. The young man, with 
 his sweet and merry laugh, defends himself by 
 producing the result of his last-night's medita- 
 tions, in praise of the selfsame wandering fancy. 
 
 "Ever let the Fancy roam, 
 Pleasure never is at home: 
 At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; 
 Then let wingfed Fancy wander 
 Through the thought still spread beyond her: 
 Open wide the mind's cage door, 
 She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. 
 O, sweet Fancy! let her loose; 
 Summer's joys are spoilt by use, 
 And the enjoying of the Spring 
 Fades as does its blossoming: 
 Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too. 
 Blushing through the mist and dew. 
 Cloys with tasting: What do then? 
 Sit thee by the ingle, when 
 The sear faggot blazes bright, 
 Spirit of a winter's night; 
 When the soundless earth is muffled. 
 And the caked snow is shuffled 
 From the ploughboy's heavy shoon. . . 
 Fancy, high-commission'd: — send her! 
 She has vassals to attend her: 
 She will bring, in spite of frost, 
 Beauties that the earth hath lost; 
 She will bring thee, all together, 
 All delights of summer weather; 
 AH the buds and bells of May, 
 From dewy sward or thorny spray; 
 All the heaped Autumn's wealth, 
 13 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 With a still, mysterious stealth: 
 She will mix these pleasures up, 
 Like three fit wines in a cup. 
 
 And thou shalt quaff it 
 
 Fancy. 
 
 Breakfast over, the business of the day 
 begins: and that, with Keats, is poetry, and all 
 that can foster poetic stimulus. He takes no 
 real heed of anything else. A devoted son and 
 brother, one ready to sacrifice himself and his 
 slender resources to the uttermost farthing for 
 his mother, brothers, sister and friends — yet he 
 has no vital interest in other folks' affairs, nor 
 in current events, nor in ordinary social topics. 
 Other people's poetry does not appeal to him, 
 except that of Shakespeare, and of Homer 
 — whom he does not know in the original, but 
 who, through the poor medium of translation, 
 has filled his soul with Grecian fantasies. 
 
 Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold. 
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 
 Round many western islands have I been 
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
 
 That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his de- 
 mesne: 
 
 14 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 
 When a new planet swims into his ken; 
 Or like stout Gortez when with eagle eyes 
 
 He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
 Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — 
 
 Silent upon a peak in Darien. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 This is what he wrote after sitting up one 
 night till daybreak with his friend Gowden 
 Clarke, shouting with delight over the vistas 
 newly revealed to him. And from that time 
 on, he has luxuriated in dreams of classic beauty, 
 warmed to new life by the sorcery of Romance. 
 Immortal shapes arise upon him from the "in- 
 finite azure of the past:" and he sees how 
 
 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale 
 Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 
 Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, 
 Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, 
 Still as the silence round about his lair; 
 Forest on forest hung about his head 
 Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there. 
 Not so much life as on a summer's day 
 
 15 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, 
 But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 
 A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more 
 By reason of his fallen divinity 
 Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds 
 Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips. 
 
 Hyperion. 
 
 He is studying French, Latin, and especially 
 Italian — all with a view of furthering his poetic 
 ability: though no great reader, he has soaked 
 himself in the atmosphere of old Italian tales, 
 and the very spirit of mediaeval Florence 
 breathes from the story, borrowed from 
 Boccaccio, "an echo in the north- wind sung," 
 which narrates how the hapless Isabella hid 
 away the head of her murdered lover. 
 
 Then in a silken scarf, — sweet with the dews 
 Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby, 
 
 And divine liquids come with odorous ooze 
 Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfuUy, — 
 
 She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose 
 A garden pot, wherein she laid it by, 
 
 And covered it with mould, and o'er it set 
 
 Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet. 
 
 i6 
 
Painting by W. J. Neafby, ISABELLA 
 
 And she forgot the stars, the moon, the sun. 
 And she forgot the blue above the trees, 
 
 And she forgot the dells where waters run, 
 And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze ; 
 
 She had no knowledge when the day was done. 
 And the new moon she saw not : but in peace 
 
 Hung over her sweet Basil evermore. 
 
 And moisten'd it with tears unto the core. 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun, 
 And she forgot the blue above the trees, 
 
 And she forgot the dells where waters run, 
 And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze; 
 
 She had no knowledge when the day was done, 
 And the new moon she saw not: but in peace 
 
 Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, 
 
 And moisten'd it with tears unto the core. 
 
 Isabella. 
 
 Keats has brought himself with difficulty, 
 however, to the perusal of modern poets. His 
 boyish enthusiasm for Leigh Hunt's work has 
 long since evaporated: and after reading 
 Shelley's Revolt of Islam, all he has found to say 
 is, "Poor Shelley, I think he has his quota of 
 good qualities!" But, for the rest, he is not 
 attracted to any kind of knowledge which can- 
 not be "made applicable and subservient to the 
 purposes of poetry," — his own poetry. For his 
 one desire is to win an immortal name — and he 
 has begun life "full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, 
 and ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at 
 once beneath his pen. Poor fellow!" (Haydon's 
 diary). 
 
 But "men of genius," Keats himself has 
 said, "are as great as certain ethereal chemicals, 
 
 19 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 operating in a mass of created matter: but they 
 have not any determined character." That 
 indefiniteness of literary aim — that want of 
 will-power, without which genius is a curse, 
 which have hampered the young man all along 
 — are now still further emphasised by the 
 restlessness of a passionate lover. John Keats 
 cannot stay indoors this fine May morning, 
 "fitting himself for verses fit to live," when the 
 girl who is to him the incarnation of all poetry 
 is visible in the next-door garden. He throws 
 down his pen and hurries out to join her. 
 
 Contemporary portraits of Fanny Brawne 
 have not succeeded in representing her as 
 beautiful: and at first sight Keats has complained, 
 that, although she "manages to make her hair 
 look well," she "wants sentiment in every 
 feature." Propinquity, however, has achieved 
 the usual result; and now the young poet be- 
 lieves his inamorata to be the very apotheosis of 
 loveliness: he is never weary of adoring her 
 
 Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer 
 
 breast. 
 Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone, 
 Bright eyes, accomplished shape! 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 If the truth be told, Fanny Brawne is a 
 fairly good-looking young woman, blue-eyed 
 and long-nosed, her hair arranged with curls 
 and ribbons over her brow: she has a curious 
 but striking resemblance to the draped figure in 
 Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love": and for 
 the rest, she is by no means poetic or senti- 
 mental, but a voluminous reader, whose strong 
 point is an extraordinary knowledge of the 
 history of costume. She accepts the homage of 
 Keats, much as she accepts the fact of their 
 tacit betrothal, and the fact that her mother 
 disapproves of it — without taking it too seriously 
 in any sense. And now, though not particularly 
 keen on open-air enjoyment, she accepts his 
 daily suggestion of a walk with her; and they 
 go out into the beautiful meadows which were 
 part of Hampstead a hundred years ago. 
 
 Keats is in his glory in the fields. Always, 
 the humming of a bee, the sight of a flower, the 
 glitter of the sun, have "seemed to make his 
 nature tremble: then his eyes flashed, his cheek 
 glowed, his mouth quivered." Peculiarly sen- 
 sitive, as he is, to external influences, his chief 
 delight is to "think of green fields ... I muse 
 with the greatest affection on every flower I 
 
 21 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 have known from my infancy." The man who is 
 so soon to "feel the daisies growing over him," 
 takes one of his intensest pleasures in watching 
 the growth of flowers; and now, as an exquisite 
 music, "notes that pierce and pierce," descends 
 through the young green oak-leaves, the poet 
 seizes this golden moment of the May world 
 and transmutes it into song. 
 
 . 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 with 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. 
 
 O, for a draught of vintage, that hath been 
 Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvfed earth. 
 
 Tasting of Flora and the country-green. 
 
 Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt 
 mirth ! 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 O for a beaker full of the warm South, 
 
 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
 With beaded bubbles winking at the 
 brim, 
 And purple-stainfed mouth; 
 That I might drink, and leave the world unseen. 
 And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 
 
 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
 
 What thou among the leaves hast never 
 known, 
 The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
 
 Here, where men sit and hear each other 
 groan; 
 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs. 
 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, 
 and dies; 
 Where but to think is to be full of 
 sorrow 
 And leaden-eyed despairs; 
 Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
 Or new Love pine at them beyond to- 
 morrow. . . . 
 
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird ! 
 
 No hungry generations tread thee down; 
 The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
 
 23 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 In ancient days by emperor and clown: 
 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick 
 for home, 
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 
 That same that oft-times hath 
 Charm'd magic casements, 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? 
 
 Fled is that music: — do I wake or sleep? 
 
 Ode to a Nightingale. 
 
 The poet is recalled from these rapturous 
 flights to the fugitive sweetness of the present: 
 he is wandering in May meadows, young and 
 impetuous, on fire with hopes, and his heart's 
 beloved beside him. It is almost too good to be 
 
 true. "I have never known any unalloyed 
 
 24 
 
Painting by W. J. Neatby. THE NIGHTINGALK 
 
 Thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, 
 
 In some melodious plot 
 Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
 
 Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 happiness for many days together," he tells 
 Fanny; "the death or sickness of someone has 
 always spoilt my home. I almost wish we were 
 butterflies, and lived but three summer days 
 — three such days with you I could fill with 
 more delight than fifty common years could 
 ever contain." He talks to her earnestly of his 
 dreams, his aspirations, his ambitions: and then 
 the sordid facts of every-day Ufe begin to cast 
 a blighting shadow over his effulgent hopes. 
 What has he, indeed, to offer, worth her taking? 
 A young man of twenty-three, ex-dresser at a 
 hospital, who has abandoned his surgical career 
 without adopting any other: with slender re- 
 sources, and no occupation beyond that of 
 producing verses which are held up to absolute 
 derision by the great reviews. "I would 
 willingly have recourse to other means," he 
 tells her again, as he has told his friend Dilke, 
 "I cannot: I am fit for nothing else but lit- 
 erature." He talks of taking up journalism 
 — but in his heart he feels unfit for any regular 
 profession, by reason both of physical weakness 
 and a certain lack of system in mental work. 
 The future becomes blackly, blankly overcast; 
 the res augusta dotni descend like a curtain 
 
 between the sublimity of Keats and the calm 
 
 27 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 commonsense of Fanny. They turn homewards 
 in silence, the poet revolving melancholy mus- 
 ings. 
 
 "But when the melancholy fit shall fall 
 
 Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, 
 That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, 
 
 And hides the green hill in an April shroud; 
 Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose. 
 
 Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave. 
 Or on the wealth of globed peonies; 
 
 Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, 
 Emprison her soft hand, and let rave, 
 
 And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 
 
 She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die; 
 
 And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips 
 Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, 
 
 Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. 
 Ay, in the very temple of Delight 
 
 Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine. 
 Though seen of none save him whose strenuous 
 tongue 
 
 Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; 
 His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, 
 
 And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 
 
 Ode to Melancholy. 
 
 28 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 Fanny Brawne enters her mother's house, 
 and John Keats goes into his room and sits 
 down, brooding, brooding. "O," he says, "that 
 something fortunate had ever happened to me 
 or my brothers ! Then I might hope — but despair 
 is forced upon me as a habit." And he is only 
 too well aware, that although he is naturally 
 "the very soul of courage and manliness," this 
 habit of despair is growing upon him, and eating 
 his energy away. A wintry chill settles down 
 upon the May-time, and his misery finds vent 
 in lovely lines — 
 
 In a drear-nighted December, 
 
 Too happy, happy tree. 
 Thy branches ne'er remember 
 Their green felicity: 
 The north cannot undo them. 
 With a sleety whistle through them; 
 Nor frozen thawings glue them 
 From budding at the prime. 
 
 In a drear-nighted December, 
 
 Too happy, happy brook. 
 Thy bubblings ne'er remember 
 
 Apollo's summer look; 
 
 29 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 But with a sweet forgetting, 
 They stay their crystal fretting, 
 Never, never petting 
 
 About the frozen time. 
 
 Ah ! would 'twere so with many 
 A gentle girl and boy ! 
 
 But were there ever any 
 
 Writh'd not at passed joy? 
 To know the change and feel it, 
 When there is none to heal it, 
 Nor numbed sense to steal it. 
 Was never said in rhyme. 
 
 Yet Keats is young, and youth means 
 buoyancy. With an eflFort — increasingly difficult 
 — he is able to shake off this sombre fit for 
 awhile; and he makes use of the simplest means 
 to that end. "Whenever I feel vapourish," he 
 has said, "I rouse myself, wash, and put on a 
 clean shirt; brush my hair and clothes, tie my 
 shoe-strings neatly, and in fact adonize as if I 
 were going out: then, all clean and comfortable, 
 I sit down to write." These very prosaic 
 methods adopted, he abandons himself to the 
 full flood of inspiration, and lets his mind suffuse 
 itself in antique glory. As Endymion, he 
 
 3° 
 
Painting by W. J. Neatby. ENDYMION 
 
 As she spake, into her face there came 
 Light, as reflected from a silver flame, 
 ... In her eyes a brighter day 
 Dawn'd blue and full of love. 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 receives the divine commands of the passionately 
 bright Moon-Lady, as she stoops at last to bless 
 him. 
 
 And as she spake, into her face there came 
 Light, as reflected from a silver flame: 
 Her long black hair swelled ample, in display 
 Full golden: in her eyes a brighter day 
 Dawn'd blue and full of love. 
 
 Endymion. 
 
 Or, as Lycius, he succumbs to the serpentine 
 grace of Lamia; or as Porphyro, hidden in the 
 silence, watches Madeline at prayer. 
 
 A casement high and triple-arch'd there 
 
 was, 
 All garlanded with carven imageries 
 Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot 
 
 grass. 
 And diamonded with panes of quaint device. 
 Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, 
 As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings; 
 And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries. 
 And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
 A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of 
 
 queens and kings. 
 
 33 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
 And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair 
 
 breast, 
 As down she knelt for heaven's grace and 
 
 boon 
 Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
 And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
 And on her hair a glory, like a saint: 
 She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest. 
 Save wings, for heaven: Porphyro grew 
 
 faint: 
 She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal 
 
 taint. 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes. 
 
 But the inspiration does not well up to-day: 
 its flow is frustrated, in view of the mountainous 
 difficulties which hedge him in. Ill-health, 
 stinted means, hopeless love, and continual lack 
 of success — these are calculated to give the 
 bravest pause. And presently Keats, snatching 
 a few hurried mouthfuls of lunch, is off" to the 
 studio of his friend, the painter Haydon — the 
 one man among all his acquaintance who is 
 capable of really understanding him. He sits 
 down morbid and silent in the painting room: 
 for a while nothing will evoke a word from him, 
 
 34 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 good or bad. But his keen interest in matters 
 of art, and the entry of various friends one by 
 one — Wentworth Dilke, Hamilton Reynolds, 
 Bailey and Leigh Hunt— soon arouse him to 
 animated conversation. Keats is shy and ill at 
 ease in women's society: but a "delightful 
 combination of earnestness and pleasantry 
 distinguishes his intercourse with men." He 
 says fine things finely, jokes with ready humour, 
 and at the mention of any oppression or wrong 
 rises "into grave manliness at once, seeming 
 like a tall man." No wonder that his society is 
 much sought after, and himself greatly beloved 
 by these congenial spirits; no wonder that here, 
 at least, he meets with that appreciation of 
 which elsewhere his genius has been starved. In 
 this young fellow of twenty-three, who unites 
 winning, affectionate ways, and habitual gentle- 
 ness of manner, with the loftiest and most 
 nobly-worded ideals, few would discover that 
 imaginary "Johnny Keats, the apothecary's 
 assistant," upon whom the Blackwood reviewer 
 had lavished such vials of vituperation. He is 
 here openly acknowledged as one of the "bards 
 of passion and of mirth," and his poems are 
 each accepted, as 
 
 35 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 Not a senseless, tranced thing, 
 But divine melodies of truth, 
 Philosophic numbers smooth, 
 Tales and golden histories 
 Of heaven and its mysteries. . . . 
 
 "No one else in English poetry, save 
 Shakespeare, has in expression quite the 
 fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of 
 loveliness." (Matthew Arnold). But only these 
 few friends of his are able to recognise that 
 perfection. Outside their ci|iarmed circle, lies 
 an obstinately unappreciative world. 
 
 The afternoon wears on, and the friends 
 disperse. Keats, returning to Wentworth Place 
 flushed with hectic exhilaration, finds a veritable 
 douche of cold water awaiting him, in the shape 
 of a letter from his publishers. They refer to 
 his unlucky first volume of poems, brought out 
 in 1817. "By far the greater number of persons 
 who have purchased it from us," they say, 
 "have found fault with it in such plain terms, 
 that we have in many cases offered to take the 
 book back, rather than be annoyed with the 
 ridicule which has time after time been show- 
 
 36 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 ered upon it. In fact, it was only on Sunday 
 last that we were under the mortification of 
 having our own opinion of its merits flatly 
 contradicted by a gentleman who told us that 
 he considered it 'no better thafi a^t^ake-in.'" 
 
 For a few mimites me pendulum swings 
 back to despair. A maivwWse whole business 
 in life is the creationTai tne best work, who 
 "never wrote a line ©f iraetry with the least 
 shadow of public Jmpugnt," who believes that 
 after his dea^ be^ilf be among the English 
 poets, and thaWf he only has time now, he will 
 make himself remembered — that such a one 
 should be merely the butt and laughing-stock of 
 his readers ! It is an unendurable position. Not 
 that Keats attaches undue importance to popular 
 applause. "Praise or blame," he says, "has 
 but a momentary effect upon the man whose 
 love of beauty in the abstract makes him a 
 severe critic on his own works . . In 'Endymion' 
 I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have 
 become better acquainted with the soundings, the 
 quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed 
 upon the green shore and took tea and com- 
 fortable advice. I was never afraid of failure: 
 
 37 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 for I would sooner fail than not be among the 
 greatest." 
 
 But what will Fanny think of such a letter? 
 He falls to miserable meditation over the slings 
 and arrows of outrageous Fortune, and the 
 constant erection of new obstacles in the course 
 of his luckless love. And of Fanny's love he 
 always has had a smouldering doubt: yet he 
 remains her vassal, from the first, as he has told 
 her — irrevocably her slave. He conceives 
 himself an outcast on the wintry hillside, exiled 
 from all his heart's desires. 
 
 Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, 
 
 Alone and palely loitering ? 
 The sedge is wither'd from the lake. 
 
 And no birds sing. 
 
 Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight, 
 So haggard and so woe-begone? 
 
 The squirrel's granary is full, 
 And the harvest's done. 
 
 I see a lily on thy brow, 
 
 With anguish moist and fever dew; 
 And on thy cheek a fading rose 
 
 Fast withereth too. 
 
 38 
 
Painting by W. J. Neatby, 
 
 LA BELLE DAME SANS MEKCI 
 
 I met a lady in the meads 
 
 Full beautiful, a faery's child ; 
 
 Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
 And her eyes were wild. 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 I met a lady in the meads 
 
 Full beautiful, a faery's child; 
 
 Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
 And her eyes were wild. 
 
 I set her on my pacing steed, 
 
 And nothing else saw all day long; 
 
 And sideways would she lean, and sing 
 A faery's song. 
 
 I made a garland for her head. 
 
 And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; 
 She look'd at me and she did love. 
 
 And made sweet moan. 
 
 She found me roots of relish sweet. 
 And honey wild, and manna dew; 
 
 And sure in language strange she said, 
 I love thee true. 
 
 She took me to her elfin grot, ** 
 
 And there she gaz'd and sighed deep. 
 
 And there I shut her wild sad eyes — 
 So kiss'd to sleep. 
 
 And there we slumber'd on the moss. 
 And there I dream'd, ah woe betide. 
 
 The latest dream I ever dream'd 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 41 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 I saw pale kings, and princes too, 
 
 Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; 
 
 Who cried — "La belle Dame sans merci 
 Hath thee in thrall!" 
 
 I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam 
 With horrid warning gaped wide, 
 
 And I awoke, and found me here 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 And this is why I sojourn here 
 
 Alone and palely loitering, 
 Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake. 
 
 And no birds sing. 
 
 La Belle Dame sans merci. 
 
 And now he hears the voice of his Belle 
 Dame ringing light across the garden; while he 
 sits here, a prey to every distress, she is gaily 
 gossiping with her next-door neighbour Brown. 
 At once the unhappy Keats is tormented by a 
 thousand jealous fears. Fanny is transferring 
 her affection to Brown: of that he is quite 
 certain. He rushes out: his black looks banish 
 the much-amused Brown, and very nearly 
 produce an immediate rupture between Fanny 
 and himself. But after a few bitter words, he 
 
 42 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS. 
 
 permits himself to be reassured — or is it cajoled? 
 — and tells her, "I must confess that I love you 
 the more, in that I believe you have liked me 
 for my own sake and for nothing else." The 
 poor boy, from a worldly point of view, has 
 "nothing else" to oflfer. 
 
 The lovers' quarrel is over for the nonce. 
 Visitors begin to drop in for the evening; there 
 is music and singing in Brown's little drawing 
 room. Keats is very fond of music, and can 
 himself, though possessing hardly any voice, 
 "produce a pleasing musical eflFect." He will 
 sit and listen for hours to a sympathetic per- 
 former: but his ear, like all his faculties, is 
 abnormally sensitive: and a wrong note will 
 drive him into a frenzy. As the room grows 
 fuller, he becomes restive. "The poetical 
 character," he has observed, "is not itself — it 
 has no character. When I am in a room with 
 people, the identity of everyone in the room 
 begins to press upon me so that I am in a little 
 time annihilated." 
 
 In the light chit-chat of small talk and 
 badinage he has no part: it bewilders and 
 annoys him. Those about him — especially the 
 
 43 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 women — seem to show up in their worst colours. 
 Fanny herself appears, as he has described her 
 at their first meeting, an absolute minx. And 
 presently he contrives to slip stealthily away, 
 and seats himself in some quiet chamber, alone 
 with the darkness and the May-scents of leaf 
 and blossom. "I hope I shall never marry," 
 he groans once more; "the roaring wind is my 
 wife, and the stars through the window-panes 
 are my children: the mighty abstract idea of 
 Beauty I have in all things, stifles the more 
 divided and minute domestic happiness. I do 
 not live in this world alone, but in a thousand 
 worlds. No sooner am I alone, than shapes of 
 epic greatness are stationed round me, and serve 
 my spirit the office which is equivalent to a 
 King's Bodyguard." 
 
 The young man now lights his candles, and 
 takes up a familiar and favourite occupation; — 
 the writing of a long letter to his brother George 
 in America. This epistle is, as one might 
 expect, almost entirely concerned with the art 
 of poetry — what else has Keats to write about? 
 — whether from the side of technique, or in- 
 spiration. He dwells on the adroit management 
 of open and close vowels — he shows how "the 
 
 44 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 poetry of earth is never dead;" he discusses the 
 need of constant appHcation to work, and how 
 "the genius of poetry must work out its own 
 salvation in a man." And meanwhile, as fitful 
 strains of song reach him from the distance, and 
 his roving gaze rivets itself upon a Wedgwood 
 copy of a Grecian vase — one of Brown's chief 
 treasures— the fleeting wafts of sound, and the 
 lovely symmetry of shape, and the golden chain 
 of figures, blend themselves into one harmonious 
 whole of word-music. 
 
 Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness. 
 
 Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, 
 Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 
 
 A flowery tale more sweetly than our 
 rhyme: 
 What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 
 Of deities or mortals, or of both, 
 
 In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 
 What men or gods are these? what maidens 
 loath? 
 What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 
 What pipes and timbrels ? What wild 
 ecstasy? 
 
 45 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 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 hast not thou thy 
 bliss, 
 For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 
 
 Ah, happy, happy boughs! 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 passion far above, 
 
 That leaves a heart high sorrowful and 
 cloy'd, 
 
 46 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 A burning forehead, and a parching 
 tongue. 
 
 Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 
 
 To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
 Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 
 And all her silken flanks with garlands 
 drest? 
 What little town by river or sea-shore. 
 
 Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel. 
 Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? 
 And, little town, thy streets for evermore 
 Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 
 
 Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 
 
 O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 
 
 Of marble men and maidens overwrought. 
 With forest branches and 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 
 
 47 
 
A DAY WITH KEATS 
 
 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. 
 
 Ode to a Grecian Urn. 
 
 The "shapes of epic greatness" throng 
 closer and mightier around him. The storm 
 and stress of the day's thoughts have utterly 
 drained his small reserve of strength. Outworn 
 by the vehemence of his own conflicting 
 emotions, John Keats lays his aching eyes and 
 dark brown head upon his arm as it rests along 
 the table, and sinks into a dreamless slumber of 
 exhaustion; while, a 
 
 "Happy melodist, unwearied, 
 
 For ever singing songs for ever new," 
 
 the nightingale chants on outside. 
 
 Printed by Percy Lvmd, Humphries & Co., Ltd., 
 Bradford and London. 
 
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