Selected Poems and Letters. John Keats

Charles Cowden Clarke

       To Kosciusko

       Hyperion: A Fragment

       Book I

       Book II

       Book III

       Endymion: A Poetic Romance

       Book I

       Book II

       Book III

       Book IV

       Letters

       CLASSIC LITERATURE: WORDS AND PHRASES adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

       About the Publisher

Poems

       Addressed to Haydon

      Highmindedness, a jealousy for good,

      A loving-kindness for the great man’s fame,

      Dwells here and there with people of no name,

      In noisome alley, and in pathless wood:

      And where we think the truth least understood,

      Oft may be found a “singleness of aim,”

      That ought to frighten into hooded shame

      A money mong’ring, pitiable brood.

      How glorious this affection for the cause

      Of stedfast genius, toiling gallantly!

      What when a stout unbending champion awes

      Envy, and Malice to their native sty?

      Unnumber’d souls breathe out a still applause,

      Proud to behold him in his country’s eye.

       I stood tip-toe upon a little hill

      I stood tip-toe upon a little hill,

      The air was cooling, and so very still.

      That the sweet buds which with a modest pride

      Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,

      Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems,

      Had not yet lost those starry diadems

      Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.

      The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,

      And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept

      On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept

      A little noiseless noise among the leaves,

      Born of the very sigh that silence heaves:

      For not the faintest motion could be seen

      Of all the shades that slanted o’er the green.

      There was wide wand’ring for the greediest eye,

      To peer about upon variety;

      Far round the horizon’s crystal air to skim,

      And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;

      To picture out the quaint, and curious bending

      Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending;

      Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,

      Guess were the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

      I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free

      As though the fanning wings of Mercury

      Had played upon my heels: I was light-hearted,

      And many pleasures to my vision started;

      So I straightway began to pluck a posey

      Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy.

      A bush of May flowers with the bees about them;

      Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them;

      And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

      And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them

      Moist, cool and green; and shade the violets,

      That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

      A filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined,

      And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind

      Upon their summer thrones; there too should be

      The frequent chequer of a youngling tree,

      That with a score of light green brethen shoots

      From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:

      Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters

      Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters

      The spreading blue bells: it may haply mourn

      That such fair clusters should be rudely torn

      From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly

      By infant hands, left on the path to die.

      Open afresh your round of starry folds,

      Ye ardent marigolds!

      Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,

      For great Apollo bids

      That in these days your praises should be sung

      On many harps, which he has lately strung;

      And when again your dewiness he kisses,

      Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:

      So haply when I rove in some far vale,

      His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

      Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:

      With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,

      And taper fulgent catching at all things,

      To bind them all about with tiny rings.

      Linger awhile upon some bending planks

      That lean against a streamlet’s rushy banks,

      And watch intently Nature’s gentle doings:

      They will be found softer than ring-dove’s cooings.

      How silent comes the water round that bend;

      Not the minutest whisper does it send

      To the o’erhanging sallows: blades