Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl

FILL for me a brimming bowl

And in it let me drown my soul:

But put therein some drug, designed

To Banish Women from my mind:

For I want not the stream inspiring

That fills the mind with--fond desiring,

But I want as deep a draught

As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaff'd;

From my despairing heart to charm

The Image of the fairest form

That e'er my reveling eyes beheld,

That e'er my wandering fancy spell'd.

In vain! away I cannot chace

The melting softness of that face,

The beaminess of those bright eyes,

That breast--earth's only Paradise.

My sight will never more be blest;

For all I see has lost its zest:

Nor with delight can I explore,

The Classic page, or Muse's lore.

Had she but known how beat my heart,

And with one smile reliev'd its smart

I should have felt a sweet relief,

I should have felt ``the joy of grief.''

Yet as the Tuscan mid the snow

Of Lapland dreams on sweet Arno,

Even so for ever shall she be

The Halo of my Memory.

John Keats

Lines on the Mermaid Tavern

SOULS of Poets dead and gone,

What Elysium have ye known,

Happy field or mossy cavern,

Choicer 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,

Nobody 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,

What Elysium have ye known,

Happy field or mossy cavern,

Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

John Keats

To Hope

WHEN by my solitary hearth I sit,

  And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;

When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,

  And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;

    Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,

    And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.

Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,

  Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,

Should sad Despondency my musings fright,

  And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,

    Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,

    And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof.

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,

  Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;

When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,

  Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:

    Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,

    And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear

  Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,

O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;

  Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:

    Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,

    And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,

  From cruel parents, or relentless fair;

O let me think it is not quite in vain

  To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!

    Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,

    And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

In the long vista of the years to roll,

  Let me not see our country's honour fade:

O let me see our land retain her soul,

  Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.

    From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed--

    Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!

Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,

  Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!

With the base purple of a court oppress'd,

  Bowing her head, and ready to expire:

    But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings

    That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star

  Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;

Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:

  So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,

    Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,

    Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.(1815)

John Keats

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high piled books, in charact'ry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love!--then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats

To Solitude

O SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell,

Let it not be among the jumbled heap

Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,--

Nature's observatory--whence the dell,

Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,

May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep

'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap

Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.

But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,

Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,

Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,

Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be

Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,

When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

John Keats

On Fame

                I.

FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy

To those who woo her with too slavish knees,

But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,

And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;

She is a Gipsey,--will not speak to those

Who have not learnt to be content without her;

A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close,

Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;

A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;

Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;

Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are!

Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,

Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

                II.

"You cannot eat your cake and have it too."--Proverb.

How fever'd is the man, who cannot look

Upon his mortal days with temperate blood,

Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book,

And robs his fair name of its maidenhood;

It is as if the rose should pluck herself,

On the ripe plum finger its misty bloom,

As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,

Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom:

But the rose leaves herself upon the briar,

For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed,

And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire,

    The undisturbed lake has crystal space;

    Why then should man, teasing the world for grace,

Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

John Keats

Keen, Fitful Gusts are Whisp'ring Here and There

KEEN, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there

Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;

The stars look very cold about the sky,

And I have many miles on foot to fare.

Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,

Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,

Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,

Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:

For I am brimfull of the friendliness

That in a little cottage I have found;

Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress,

And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;

Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,

And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.

John Keats

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

THE poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead

In summer luxury,--he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. (1816)

John Keats

Fancy

EVER let the Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

Then let winged 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;

When the Night doth meet the Noon

In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.

Sit thee there, and send abroad,

With a mind self-overaw'd,

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;

All the buds and bells of May,

From dewy sward or thorny spray;

All the heaped Autumn's wealth,

With a still, mysterious stealth:

She will mix these pleasures up

Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear

Distant harvest-carols clear;

Rustle of the reaped corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn:

And, in the same moment--hark!

'Tis the early April lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,

Foraging for sticks and straw.

Thou shalt, at one glance, behold

The daisy and the marigold;

White-plum'd lilies, and the first

Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;

Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

And every leaf, and every flower

Pearled with the self-same shower.

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep

Meagre from its celled sleep;

And the snake all winter-thin

Cast on sunny bank its skin;

Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see

Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,

When the hen-bird's wing doth rest

Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering,

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Every thing is spoilt by use:

Where's the cheek that doth not fade,

Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid

Whose lip mature is ever new?

Where's the eye, however blue,

Doth not weary? Where's the face

One would meet in every place?

Where's the voice, however soft,

One would hear so very oft?

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.

Let, then, winged Fancy find

Thee a mistress to thy mind:

Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,

Ere the God of Torment taught her

How to frown and how to chide;

With a waist and with a side

White as Hebe's, when her zone

Slipt its golden clasp, and down

Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh

Of the Fancy's silken leash;

Quickly break her prison-string

And such joys as these she'll bring.--

Let the winged Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home.

John Keats

Hymn To Apollo

GOD of the golden bow,

    And of the golden lyre,

And of the golden hair,

    And of the golden fire,

       Charioteer

       Of the patient year,

    Where -- where slept thine ire,

When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,

    Thy laurel, thy glory,

    The light of thy story,

Or was I a worm -- too low crawling for death?

    O Delphic Apollo!

The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,

    The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;

The eagle's feathery mane

    For wrath became stiffen'd -- the sound

       Of breeding thunder

       Went drowsily under,

    Muttering to be unbound.

O why didst thou pity, and beg for a worm?

    Why touch thy soft lute

    Till the thunder was mute,

Why was I not crush'd -- such a pitiful germ?

    O Delphic Apollo!

The Pleiades were up,

    Watching the silent air;

The seeds and roots in Earth

    Were swelling for summer fare;

       The Ocean, its neighbor,

       Was at his old labor,

    When, who -- who did dare

To tie for a moment, thy plant round his brow,

    And grin and look proudly,

    And blaspheme so loudly,

And live for that honor, to stoop to thee now?

    O Delphic Apollo!

John Keats

Robin Hood

      NO! those days are gone away,

And their hours are old and gray,

And their minutes buried all

Under the down-trodden pall

Ofthe leaves 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 knew nor rent nor 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 one, 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 "grene 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 dockyard 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.

John Keats

In Drear-nighted December

IN 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 drear-nighted December,

Too happy, happy brook,

Thy bubblings ne'er remember

Apollo's summer look;

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

Writhed not at passed joy?

The feel of not to feel it,

When there is none to heal it

Nor numbed sense to steel it,

Was never said in rhyme.

John Keats