Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats

by KEATS, JOHNHIRSCH, EDWARD

• ISBN13: 9780375756696
• ISBN10: 0375756698
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2001-02-13
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

'I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death,' John Keats soberly prophesied in 1818 as he started writing the blankverse epicHyperion.Today he endures as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses but suffered a tragic early death. Edmund Wilson counted him as 'one of the half dozen greatest English writers,' and T. S. Eliot has paid tribute to the Shakespearean quality of Keats's greatness. Indeed, his work has survived better than that of any of his contemporaries the devaluation of Romantic poetry that began early in this century. This Modern Library edition contains all of Keats's magnificent verse: 'Lamia,' 'Isabella,' and 'The Eve of St. Agnes'; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romanceEndymion;and the five-act poetic tragedyOtho the Great.Presented as well are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary 'The Eve of Saint Mark' and the great 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language. 'No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness,' said Matthew Arnold. 'In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare.'

Author Biography

John Keats was born in London in living quarters connected with his maternal grandfather's livery stable, the Swan and Hoop Inn, on October 31, 1795. He was the eldest of five children (one of whom died in infancy) begot by Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats. His father was the chief hostler at the Swan and Hoop, and the family prospered. The boy was eight years old when Thomas Keats was killed in a riding accident; the next year, in 1805, Keats's grandfather died. When the future poet was fourteen, his mother (after an unsuccessful remarriage) succumbed to tuberculosis. By then, however, Keats had received a liberal education at the progressive Clarke school, a private academy in the village of Enfield, twelve miles north of London, where for eight years he studied English literature, modern languages, and Latin. (He began tran

Table of Contents

Biographical Note	v
Introduction	xv
Edward Hirsch
POEMS (1817)
Dedication. To Leigh Hunt, Esq.	3	(1)
`I stood tip-toe upon a little hill'	3	(7)
Specimen of an Induction to a Poem	10	(2)
Calidore: A Fragment	12	(5)
To Some Ladies	17	(1)
On receiving a curious Shell and a Copy of Verses from the Same Ladies	18	(2)
To ****	20	(2)
To Hope	22	(2)
Imitation of Spenser	24	(1)
`Woman! when I behold three flippant, vain'	25	(2)
Epistles	27	(1)
To George Felton Mathew	27	(3)
To my Brother George	30	(4)
To Charles Cowden Clarke	34	(4)
Sonnets	38	(1)
To my Brother George	38	(1)
To *****	38	(1)
Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left Prison	39	(1)
`How many bards gild the lapses of time!'	39	(1)
To a Friend who sent me some Roses	40	(1)
To G. A. W.	40	(1)
`O solitude! if I must with thee dwell'	41	(1)
To my Brothers	41	(1)
`Keen fitful gusts are whispering here and there'	42	(1)
`To one who has been long in city pent'	42	(1)
On first looking into Chapman's Homer	43	(1)
On leaving some Friends at an early Hour	43	(1)
Addressed to Haydon	44	(1)
Addressed to the Same	44	(1)
On the Grasshopper and Cricket	45	(1)
To Kosciusko	45	(1)
`Happy is England'	46	(13)
Sleep and Poetry	47	(12)
ENDYMION: A POETIC ROMANCE	59	(456)
LAMIA, ISABELLA, THE EVE OF ST. AGNES AND OTHER POEMS (1820)
Lamia	187	(21)
Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil	208	(16)
The Eve of St. Agnes	224	(12)
Ode to a Nightingale	236	(2)
Ode on a Grecian Urn	238	(2)
Ode to Psyche	240	(2)
Fancy	242	(3)
Ode	245	(1)
Lines on the Mermaid Tavern	246	(1)
Robin Hood	247	(2)
To Autumn	249	(1)
Ode on Melancholy	250	(1)
Hyperion	251	(28)
POSTHUMOUS AND FUGITIVE POEMS
On Peace	279
Lines written on 29 May, the Anniversary of Charles's Restoration, on hearing the Bells ringing	260	(20)
Ode to Apollo	280	(1)
`As from the darkening gloom a silver dove'	281	(1)
To Lord Byron	282	(1)
`Fill for me a brimming bowl'	282	(1)
To Chatterton	283	(1)
To Emma	283	(1)
`Give me Women, Wine, and Snuff'	284	(1)
On receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt	285	(1)
`Come hither all sweet maidens soberly'	285	(1)
Written in Digust of Vulgar Superstition	286	(1)
`O! how I love, on a fair summer's eve'	286	(1)
To a Young Lady who sent me a Laurel Crown	287	(1)
`After dark vapours have oppressed our plains'	287	(1)
Lines in a Letter to J. H. Reynolds, from Oxford	288	(1)
On the Sea	288	(1)
To the Ladies who saw me Crowned	289	(1)
Nebuchadnezzar's Dream	289	(1)
`Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak'	290	(1)
Hymn to Apollo	290	(1)
On seeing the Elgin Marbles	291	(1)
On `The Story of Rimini'	292	(1)
Written on a Blank Space at the End of Chaucer's `The Floure and the Leafe'	292	(1)
`In drear nighted December'	293	(1)
`Unfelt, unheard, unseen'	294	(1)
Stanzas	294	(1)
`Hither, hither, love---'	295	(1)
`Think not of it, sweet one, so---'	296	(1)
On sitting down to read `King Lear' once again	297	(1)
To a Cat	297	(1)
`Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port'	298	(1)
Lines on seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair	299	(2)
`When I have fears that I may cease to be'	301	(1)
To the Nile	301	(1)
To a Lady seen for a few Moments at Vauxhall	302	(1)
`Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine'	302	(1)
Answer to a Sonnet by J. H. Reynolds, ending-----	303	(1)
Apollo to the Graces	303	(1)
`O blush not so!'	304	(1)
`O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind'	305	(1)
The Human Seasons	305	(1)
`Where be ye going, you Devon maid?'	306	(1)
`For there's Bishop's Teign'	306	(2)
To Homer	308	(1)
To J. H. Reynolds from Teignmouth 25 March 1818	309	(3)
`Over the hill and over the dale'	312	(1)
To J. R.	313	(1)
Fragment of an Ode to Maia	313	(1)
`Sweet, sweet is the greeting of eyes'	314	(1)
Acrostic	314	(1)
On visiting the Tomb of Burns	315	(1)
A Song about Myself	315	(4)
To Ailsa Rock	319	(1)
Meg Merrilies	319	(1)
`Ah! ken ye what I met the day'	320	(2)
`All gentle folks who owe a grudge'	322	(2)
`Of late two dainties were before me plac'd'	324	(1)
Sonnet written in the Cottage where Burns was born	324	(1)
Lines written in the Highlands after visiting the Burns Country	325	(2)
Staffa	327	(1)
`Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud'	328	(1)
Ben Nevis: a Dialogue	329	(2)
Song	331	(1)
To his Brother George in America	332	(2)
`Where's the Poet?'	334	(1)
Modern Love	334	(1)
The Castle Builder: Fragments of a Dialogue	335	(2)
`Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow'	337	(1)
`Hush, hush! Tread softly! hush, hush, my dear!'	338	(1)
The Dove	339	(1)
Extracts from an Opera	339	(3)
The Eve of Saint Mark	342	(4)
To Sleep	346	(1)
`Why did I laugh to-night?'	346	(1)
On a Dream after reading of Paolo and Francesca in Dante's `Inferno'	347	(1)
`The House of Mourning written by Mr. Scott'	347	(1)
`Fame, like a way ward girl'	348	(1)
Song of Four Fairies	348	(3)
La Belle Dame sans Mercy [Indicator version]	351	(2)
La belle dame sans merci	353	(2)
`How fever'd is the man, who cannot look'	355	(1)
`If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd'	355	(1)
Faery Songs	356	(1)
Spenserian Stanzas on Charles Armitage Brown	357	(1)
Ode on Indolence	358	(2)
A Party of Lovers	360	(1)
`The day is gone'	361	(1)
Lines to Fanny	361	(2)
To Fanny	363	(2)
To Fanny	365	(1)
`This living hand, now warm and capable'	365	(1)
`Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art'	365	(1)
Two or three Posies	366	(1)
`When they were come unto the Faery's Court'	367	(3)
`In after-time a sage of mickle lore'	370	(3)
LONGER POSTHUMOUS POEMS: NARRATIVE AND DRAMATIC
The Fall of Hyperion: a Vision	373	(15)
The Cap and Bells; or, The Jealousies	388	(25)
Otho the Great	413	(66)
King Stephen	479	(10)
SELECTED LETTERS
To Benjamin Bailey, 22 November 1817	489	(2)
To George and Tom Keats, 21, 27 (?) December 1817	491	(2)
To J. H. Reynolds, 3 February 1818	493	(1)
To John Taylor, 27 February 1818	494	(1)
To John Taylor, 24 April 1818	495	(2)
To J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818	497	(3)
To Richard Woodhouse, 27 October 1818	500	(2)
To George and Georgiana Keats, 14 February to 3 May 1819	502	(5)
To Fanny Brawne, 25 July 1819	507	(1)
To Percy Bysshe Shelley, 16 August 1820	508	(2)
To Charles Brown, 30 September 1820	510	(2)
To Charles Brown, 30 November 1820	512	(3)
Notes	515	(50)
Index of Titles	565	(6)
Index of First Lines	571	(6)
Commentary	577	(20)
Study Guide	597

Excerpts

'Places of nestling green for Poets made.'


Story of Rimini.

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 leav'd, 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 ———10
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; ———20
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.
I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free
As though the fanning wings of Mercury
Had play'd 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; ———30
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 brethren shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots: ——— 40
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 ——— 50
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 fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings. ——— 60


From the eBook edition.

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Excerpted from Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats by John Keats
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