The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats

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

       Table of Contents

      I

      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.

      II

      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.

      III

      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.

      IV

      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

       Table of Contents

      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 kiss’d you oft and gave you white peas;

       Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

      Written on the Day That Mr. Leigh Hunt Left Prison

       Table of Contents

      What though, for showing truth to flatter’d state

       Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,

       In his immortal spirit, been as free

       As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.

       Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait?

       Think you he nought but prison walls did see,

       Till, so unwilling, thou unturn’dst the key?

       Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate!

       In Spenser’s halls he strayed, and bowers fair,

       Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew

       With daring Milton through the fields of air:

       To regions of his own his genius true

       Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair

       When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?

      On Receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt

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      Minutes are flying swiftly, and as yet

       Nothing unearthly has enticed my brain

       Into a delphic labyrinth - I would fain

       Catch an unmortal thought to pay the debt

       I owe to the kind Poet who has set

       Upon my ambitious head a glorious gain.

       Two bending laurel sprigs - ’tis nearly pain

       To be conscious of such a Coronet.

       Still time is fleeting, and no dream arises

       Gorgeous as I would have it - only I see A trampling down of what the world most prizes

       Turbans and Crowns, and blank regality;

       And then I run into most wild surmises

       Of all the many glories that may be.

      A Song of Opposites

       Table of Contents

      Under the flag

       Of each his faction, they to battle bring

       Their embryon atoms.

       Milton

      Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,

       Lethe’s weed and Hermes’ feather;

       Come today, and come tomorrow,

       I do love you both together!

       I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;

       And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;

       Fair and foul I love together.

       Meadows sweet where flames are under.

       And a giggle at a wonder;

       Visage sage at pantomime;

       Funeral, and steeple-chime;

       Infant playing with a skull;

       Morning fair, and shipwreck’d hull;

       Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;

       Serpents in red roses hissing;

       Cleopatra regal-dress’d

       With the aspic at her breast;

       Dancing music, music sad,

       Both together, sane and mad;

       Muses bright and muses pale;

       Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -

       Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;

       Oh the sweetness of the pain!

       Muses bright, and muses pale.

       Bare your faces of the veil;

       Let me see; and let me write

       Of the day, and of the night -

       Both together: - let me slake

       All my thirst for sweet hearache!

       Let my bower be of yew,

       Interwreath’d with myrtles new;

       Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,

       And