allows his imagination to wander at its own free will, and it takes him into very strange places which seem to have little to do with Endymion or the moon. I will only quote out of it part of the song of an Indian maiden whom Endymion eventually discovers to be Diana in disguise. "O Sorrow, Why dost borrow The natural hue of health from vermeil lips? To the white rose bushes, Or is it thy dewy hand, the daisy tips? "O Sorrow, Why dost borrow The lustrous passion from falcon eye? Or, on a moonless night To tinge, on syren shores, the salt sea spry? "O Sorrow Why dost borrow The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue ? Unto the nightingale That thou mayest listen the cold dews among? "O Sorrow, Why dost borrow Heart's lightness from the merriment of May? A cowslip on the head, Though he should dance from eve till peep of day; Held sacred for thy bower Wherever he may sport himself and play. "To Sorrow I bade good-morrow, And thought to leave her far away behind; She loves me dearly; She is so constant to me, and so kind. And so leave her; But ah! she is so constant and so kind. "Come then, Sorrow, Sweetest Sorrow, Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast; And deceive thee, But now of all the world I love thee best. "There is not one, No, no, not one But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid; And her brother, Her playmate and her wooer in the shade." This poem was severely attacked by the reviewers. He writes to his brother in February, 1819, My poem has not at all succeeded. In the course of a year or two I think I shall try the public again. In a selfish point of view I should suffer my pride and my contempt of public opinion to hold me silent. But for your's and Fanny's sake I will pluck up spirit and try it again. I have no doubt of its success in a course of years if I persevere. But I must be patient, for the reviewers have enervated men's minds and made them indolent. Few think for themselves." Two judgments written at this time show the opinion of Keats both with regard to poetry in general and his own powers in particular. In the preface to "Endymion," which is dated, Teignmouth, April 10th, 1818, he says, "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between in which the soul is a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages. "I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more before I bid it farewell." He also says, writing to Taylor, his publisher:-" In poetry I have a few axioms, as you will see how far I am from their centre. "1st. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity: it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance. "2nd. Its touches of beauty should never be half way, thereby making the reader breathless instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be than to write it. "Another axiom, That if poetry comes not naturally as the leaves of a tree it had better not come at all." It is painful to think how near we are to the end of his journey. In June Keats set off from London with his friend Charles Brown for a tour in Scotland. George Keats and his newly-married wife went with them as far as Liverpool, from which port they were to sail for America. They tramped on with knapsacks on their backs till Keats was able to do his twenty miles or more a day without inconvenience. But when they got into remoter parts of the Highlands a coarse fare, rough accommodation, and perpetual drenchings of rain began to tell upon them both. Keats complains that they can get nothing to support them but eggs and oatcake, and that he is beginning to feel it. Towards the end of July he took a fatal walk of thirty-seven miles across the island of Mull. Keats says, The road through the island is the most dreary you can think of. Between dreary mountains, or bog and rock and river, with breeches turned up and our stockings in hand. About eight o'clock we arrived at a shepherd's hut, into which we could scarcely get for the smoke through a door lower than my shoulders. We found our way into a little compartment with the rafters and turf thatch blackened by smoke, the earth floor full of hills and dales. We had some white bread with us and made a good supper, and slept in our clothes and some blankets. Our guide snored in another little bed about an arm's length off." From the hardships of this walk he caught a sore throat which afterwards never left him, and ended in consumption in which he died. At Inverness the doctor ordered him to go home immediately, and he arrived at Hampstead, as one of his friends tells us, "as brown and as shabby as you can imagine, scarcely any shoes left; his jacket all torn at the back, a fur cap, a great plaid, and his knapsack. I cannot tell what he looked like." On his return he found his brother Tom dying of consumption. He writes to George at the end of October, "I am not sorry you had not letters at Philadelphia. You could have no good news of Tom, and I have withheld on his account from beginning these many days. I cannot bring myself to tell the truth. He is no He is no better, but much worse. However, it must be told. I knew my dear brother and sister would take an example from me, and bear up against any calamity for my sake, as I do for others. The tears will come into your eyes. them, and embrace each other." It is now generally agreed that consumption is infectious, and it is more than probable that Keats' anxious nursing of his brother made any recovery from his own illness impossible. Let His weakened body was now to be assailed by another passion. In Hampstead there is to be seen at this day a house called "Lawn Bank." In 1818 this consisted of two semi-detached houses called "Wentworth Place." One of them was occupied by Charles Brown and the other by Charles Dilke. After Tom's death Keats went to live with Brown, sharing the house and the expenses. Whilst Brown was away in Scotland he had let his house to a Mrs. Brawne, who had a daughter Fanny, just grown up, and two younger children. The Brawnes naturally |