No More Learning

” And this is the case not only as regards the taste of the
tongue, the palate, and the throat, but for whatever is pleasant
to any one's
eyes
and ears.
To one, violet color is soft and
lovely; to another, it is washed out and dead. One man likes
the tone of wind instruments, another that of strings. To strive
here with the design of reproving as incorrect another man's
judgment which is different from our own, as if the judgments
were logically opposed, would be folly. As regards the Pleasant,
therefore, the fundamental proposition is valid: Every one has his
own taste, — the taste of Sense.
The case is quite different with the Beautiful. It would on
the contrary be laughable if a man who imagined anything to
his own taste, thought to justify himself by saying, "This object
[the house we see, the coat that person wears, the concert we
hear, the poem submitted to our judgment] is beautiful for
me. ” For he must not call it beautiful if it merely pleases him.
Many things may have for him charm and pleasantness; no one
troubles himself at that: but if he gives out anything as beauti-
ful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction; he judges not
merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as
if it were a property of things. Hence he says, “The thing is
beautiful;” and he does not count on the agreement of others
with this his judgment of satisfaction, because he has found this
agreement several times before, but he demands it of them.
blames them if they judge otherwise; and he denies them taste,
which he nevertheless requires from them. Here then we cannot
say that each man has his own particular taste.
For this would
be as much as to say that there is no taste whatever; i. e. , no
æsthetical judgment which can make a rightful claim upon every
one's assent.
»
(
He


## p. 8487 (#91) ############################################

IMMANUEL KANT
8487
At the same time we find as regards the Pleasant that there
is an agreement among men in their judgments upon it, in regard
to which we deny taste to some and attribute it to others; by
this not meaning one of our organic senses, but a faculty of judg-
ing in respect of the Pleasant generally. Thus we say of a man
who knows how to entertain his guests with pleasures of enjoy-
ment for all the senses, so that they are all pleased, He has
taste. ” But here the universality is only taken comparatively:
and there emerge rules which are only general, like all empirical
ones, and not universal; which latter the judgment of Taste upon
the Beautiful undertakes or lays claim to. It is a judgment in
reference to sociability, so far as this rests on empirical rules.
In respect to the Good it is true that judgments make rightful
claim to validity for every one; but the Good is represented only
by means of a concept as the object of a universal satisfaction,
which is the case neither with the Pleasant nor with the Beauti.
ful.
-
This particular determination of the universality of an æstheti-
cal judgment, which is to be met with in a judgment of taste,
is noteworthy, not indeed for the logician, but for the transcend-
ental philosopher. It requires no small trouble to discover its
origin; but we thus detect a property of our cognitive faculty
which without this analysis would remain unknown.
First we must be fully convinced of the fact that in a judg-
ment of taste about the Beautiful, the satisfaction in the object
is imputed to everyone, - without being based on a concept,
for then it would be the Good. Further, this claim to universal
validity so essentially belongs to a judgment by which we de.
scribe anything as beautiful, that if this were not thought in it,
it would never come into our thoughts to use the expression
at all, but everything which pleases without a concept would be
counted as pleasant. In respect of the latter, every one has his
own opinion; and no one assumes in another, agreement with his
judgment of taste, which is always the case in a judgment of
taste about beauty.
He who fears can form no judgment about the Sublime in
nature; just as he who is seduced by inclination and appetite
can form no judgment about the Beautiful. The former flies
from the sight of an object which inspires him with awe; and
it is impossible to find satisfaction in a terror that is seriously
Hence the pleasurableness arising from the cessation of an


## p. 8488 (#92) ############################################

8488
IMMANUEL KANT
or abang
sublime
outatio
proper
TH
that
spintis
in the
facult
of 0:1
tende
men
ther
to i
sub
of
uneasiness is a state of joy. But this, on account of the deliver-
ance from danger which is involved, is a state of joy when con-
joined with the resolve that we shall no more be exposed to the
danger; we cannot willingly look back upon our sensations of
danger, much less seek the occasion for them again,
Bold, overhanging, and as it were threatening, rocks; clouds
piled up in the sky, moving with lightning flashes and thunder
peals; volcanoes in all their violence of destruction; hurricanes
with their track of devastation; the boundless ocean in a state of
tumult; the lofty waterfall of a mighty river; and such like,-
these exhibit our faculty of resistance as insignificantly small in
comparison with their might. But the sight of them is the more
attractive, the more fearful it is, provided only that we are in
security; and we willingly call these objects sublime, because
they raise the energies of the soul above their accustomed height,
and discover in us a faculty of resistance of a quite different
kind, which gives us courage to measure ourselves against the
apparent almightiness of nature.
Now, in the immensity of nature, and in the insufficiency of
our faculties to take in a standard proportionate to the æstheti-
cal estimation of the magnitude of its realm, we find our own
limitation; although at the same time in our rational faculty we
find a different, non-sensuous standard, which has that infinity
itself under it as a unity, in comparison with which everything in
nature is small, and thus in our mind we find a superiority to
nature even in its immensity. And so also the irresistibility of
its might, while making us recognize our own physical impo-
tence, considered as beings of nature, discloses to us a faculty
of judging independently of, and a superiority over, nature; on
which is based a kind of self-preservation, entirely different from
that which can be attacked and brought into danger by exter-
nal nature. Thus humanity in our person remains unhumiliated,
though the individual might have to submit to this dominion.
In this way nature is not judged to be sublime in our
thetical judgments in so far as it excites fear; but because it
calls up that power in us, which is not nature, of regarding
small the things about which we are solicitous (goods, health,
and life), and of regarding its might, to which we are no doubt
subjected in respect of these things, as nevertheless without any
dominion over us and our personality, to which we must bow
where our highest fundamental propositions, and their assertion
op
01a
es
LE
bo
æs-
as


## p. 8489 (#93) ############################################

IMMANUEL KANT
8489
or abandonment, are concerned. Therefore nature is here called
sublime merely because it elevates the imagination to a pres-
entation of those cases in which the mind can make felt the
proper sublimity of its destination, in comparison with nature
itself.
This estimation of ourselves loses nothing through the fact
that we must regard ourselves as safe in order to feel this in-
spiriting satisfaction; and that hence, as there is no seriousness
in the danger, there might be also (as might seem to be the
case) just as little seriousness in the sublimity of our spiritual
faculty. For the satisfaction here concerns only the destination
of our faculty which discloses itself in such a case, so far as the
tendency to this destination lies in our nature, whilst its develop-
ment and exercise remain incumbent and obligatory. And in this
there is truth and reality, however conscious the man may be
of his present actual powerlessness when he turns his reflection
to it.
No doubt this principle seems to be too far-fetched and too
subtly reasoned, and consequently seems to go beyond the scope
of an aesthetical judgment; but observation of men proves the
opposite, and shows that it may lie at the root of the most ordi-
nary judgments, although we are not always conscious of it. For
what is that which is, even to the savage, an object of the great-
est admiration ? It is a man who shrinks from nothing, who
fears nothing, and therefore does not yield to danger, but rather
goes to face it vigorously with the most complete deliberation.
Even in the most highly civilized state this peculiar veneration
for the soldier remains, though only under the condition that he
exhibit all the virtues of peace, gentleness, compassion, and even
a becoming care for his own person; because even by these it is
recognized that his mind is unsubdued by danger. Hence what-
ever disputes there may be about the superiority of the respect
which is to be accorded them, in the comparison of a statesman
and a general, the æsthetical judgment decides for the latter.
War itself, if it is carried on with order and with a sacred
respect for the rights of citizens, has something sublime in it,
and makes the disposition of the people who carry it on thus,
only the more sublime, the more numerous are the dangers to
which they are exposed, and in respect of which they behave
with courage. On the other hand, a long peace generally brings
about a predominant commercial spirit, and along with it, low


## p. 8490 (#94) ############################################

8490
IMMANUEL KANT
faros
ife.
onlis
are
Out
fer
fo:
SHOE
ca
d
IC
selfishness, cowardice, and effeminacy; and debases the disposition
of the people.
It appears to conflict with this solution of the concept of the
sublime, so far as sublimity is ascribed to might, that we are
accustomed to represent God as presenting himself in his wrath
and yet in his sublimity, in the tempest, the storm, the earth-
quake, etc. ; and that it would be foolish and criminal to imagine
a superiority of our minds over these works of his, and as it
seems, even over the designs of such might. Hence it would
appear that no feeling of the sublimity of our own nature, but
rather subjection, abasement, and a feeling of complete power-
lessness, is a fitting state of mind in the presence of such an
object; and this is generally bound up with the idea of it during
natural phenomena of this kind. In religion in general, prostra-
tion, adoration with bent head, with contrite, anxious demeanor
and voice, seems to be the only fitting behavior in presence of
the Godhead; and hence most peoples have adopted and still
observe it. But this state of mind is far from being necessarily
bound up with the idea of the sublimity of a religion and its
object. The man who is actually afraid, because he finds reasons
for fear in himself, whilst conscious by his culpable disposition
of offending against a Might whose will is irresistible and at the
same time just, is not in the frame of mind for admiring the
Divine greatness. For this a mood of calm contemplation and a
quite free judgment are needed. Only if he is conscious of an
upright disposition pleasing to God, do those operations of might
serve to awaken in him the idea of the sublimity of this Being,
for then he recognizes in himself a sublimity of disposition con-
formable to his will; and thus he is raised above the fear of
such operations of nature, which he no longer regards as out-
bursts of His wrath. Even humility, in the shape of a stern judg-
ment upon his own faults,— which otherwise, with a consciousness
of good intentions, could be easily palliated from the frailty of
human nature,- is a sublime state of mind, consisting in a vol-
untary subjection of himself to the pain of remorse, in order
that the causes of this may be gradually removed. In this way
religion is essentially distinguished from superstition. The lat-
ter establishes in the mind, not reverence for the sublime, but
fear and apprehension of the all-powerful Being to whose will
the terrified man sees himself subject, without according him
any high esteem. From this nothing can arise but a seeking of


## p. 8491 (#95) ############################################

IMMANUEL KANT
8491
favor and flattery, instead of a religion which consists in a good
life.
Sublimity therefore does not reside in anything of nature, but
only in our mind, in so far as we can become conscious that we
are superior to nature within, and therefore also to nature with-
out us, so far as it influences us. Everything that excites this
feeling in us,-4. 8. , the might of nature which calls forth our
forces, - is called then, although improperly, sublime. Only by
supposing this idea in ourselves, and in reference to it, are we
capable of attaining to the idea of the sublimity of that Being
which produces respect in us, not merely by the might that it
displays in nature, but rather by means of the faculty which
resides in us of judging it fearlessly and of regarding our des-
tination as sublime in respect of it.
Translation of J. H. Bernard.
OF REASON IN GENERAL
From "The Critique of Pure Reason)
A
LL our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds thence to
the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing
higher than reason, for working up the material of intuition
and comprehending it under the highest unity of thought. As
it here becomes necessary to give a definition of that highest
faculty of knowledge, Ï begin to feel considerable misgivings.
There is of reason, as there is of the understanding, a purely
formal — that is, logical— use, in which no account is taken of
the contents of knowledge; but there is also a real use, in so far
as reason itself contains the origin of certain concepts and princi-
ples, which it has not borrowed either from the senses or from
the understanding. The former faculty has been long defined by
logicians as the faculty of mediate conclusions, in contradistinc-
tion to immediate ones (consequentia immediate); but this does
not help us to understand the latter, which itself produces con-
cepts. As this brings us face to face with the division of reason
into a logical and à transcendental faculty, we must look for a
higher concept for this source of knowledge, to comprehend both
concepts; though, according to the analogy of the concepts of
the understanding, we may expect that the logical concept will
give us the key to the transcendental, and that the table of the


## p. 8492 (#96) ############################################

8492
IMMANUEL KANT
It:
ant na
Serie:
Such
.
somhet
OUISCI
sobie
CUK
care
thai
fere
for
ME
functions of the former will give us the genealogical outline of
the concepts of reason.
In the first part of our transcendental logic we defined the
understanding as the faculty of rules; and we now distinguish
reason from it by calling it the faculty of principles.
The term “principle” is ambiguous, and signifies commonly
some kind of knowledge only that may be used as a principle;
though in itself, and according to its origin, it is no principle
at all. Every general proposition, even though it may have been
derived from experience by induction, may serve as a major in
a syllogism of reason; but it is not on that account a principle.
Mathematical axioms - as for instance, that between two points
there can be only one straight line — constitute even general
knowledge a priori; and may therefore, with reference to the
cases which can be brought under them, rightly be called prin-
ciples. Nevertheless it would be wrong to say that this prop-
erty of a straight line, in general and by itself, is known to us
from principles, for it is known from pure intuition only.
I shall therefore call it knowledge from principles, whenever
we know the particular in the general by means of concepts.
Thus every syllogism of reason is a form of deducing some kind
of knowledge from a principle; because the major always contains
a concept which enables us to know, according to a principle,
everything that can be comprehended under the conditions of
that concept. As every general knowledge may serve as a major
in such a syllogism, and as the understanding supplies such gen-
eral propositions a priori, these no doubt may, with reference to
their possible use, be called principles.
But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding
in themselves, and according to their origin, we find that they
are anything rather than knowledge from concepts. They would
not even be possible a priori, unless we relied on pure intuition
(in mathematics) or on conditions of a possible experience in
general. That everything which happens has a cause, can by no
means be concluded from the concept of that which happens; on
the contrary, that very principle shows in what manner alone
we can form a definite empirical concept of that which happens.
It is impossible therefore for the understanding to supply us
with synthetical knowledge from concepts; and it is really that
kind of knowledge which I call principles absolutely; while all
general propositions may be called principles relatively.
CE
PE
0
2


## p. 8493 (#97) ############################################

IMMANUEL KANT
8493
It is an old desideratum, which at some time however dis-
tant may be realized, that instead of the endless variety of civil
laws, their principles might be discovered; for thus alone the
secret might be found of what is called simplifying legislation.
Such laws, however, are only limitations of our freedom under
conditions by which it always agrees with itself; they refer to
something which is entirely our own work, and of which we
ourselves are the cause, by means of these concepts. But that
objects in themselves, as for instance material nature, should be
subject to principles, and be determined according to mere con-
cepts, is something, if not impossible, at all events extremely
contradictory. But be that as it may,—for on this point we
have still all investigations before us,--so much at least is clear,
that knowledge from principles by itself is something totally dif-
ferent from mere knowledge of the understanding; which in the
form of a principle may no doubt precede other knowledge, but
which by itself, in so far as it is synthetical, is not based on
mere thought, nor contains anything general according to con-
cepts.
If the understanding is a faculty for producing unity among
phenomena according to rules, reason is the faculty for produ-
cing unity among the rules of the understanding according to
principles. Reason therefore never looks directly to experience
or to any object, but to the understanding; in order to impart
a priori, through concepts, to its manifold kinds of knowledge,
a unity that may be called the unity of reason, and is very dif-
ferent from the unity which can be produced by the under-
standing
This is a general definition of the faculty of reason, so far as
it was possible to make it intelligible without the help of illustra-
tions.
Translation of F. Max Müller.
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE ?
From the Prolegomena)
as
M
ETAPHYSICS
a natural disposition of the reason is real;
but it is also in itself dialectical and deceptive, as was
proved in the analytical solution of the third main prob-
lem.
Hence to attempt to draw our principles from it, and in


## p. 8494 (#98) ############################################

8494
IMMANUEL KANT
but i
prese
Tema:
ice :
knout
itse
the
bah
dec
Th
the
SC
al
a
€
their employment to follow this natural but none the less falla-
cious illusion, can never produce science, but only an empty dia-
lectical art; in which one school may indeed outdo the other, but
none can ever attain a justifiable and lasting success. In order
that as science it may lay claim not merely to deceptive per-
suasion, but to insight and conviction, a critique of the reason
must exhibit in a complete system the whole stock of concep-
tions a priori, arranged according to their different sources, -
the sensibility, the understanding, and the reason; it must pre-
sent a complete table of these conceptions, together with their
analysis and all that can be deduced from them, but more espe-
cially the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori by means
of their deduction, the principles of its use, and finally their
boundaries. Thus criticism contains, and it alone contains, the
whole plan well tested and approved — indeed, all the means -
whereby metaphysics may be perfected as a science; by other
ways and means this is impossible. The question now is not,
however, how this business is possible, but only how we are to
set about it; how good heads are to be turned from their pre-
vious mistaken and fruitless path to a non-deceptive treatment;
and how such a combination may be best directed towards the
common end.
This much is certain: he who has once tried criticism will be
sickened forever of all the dogmatic trash he was compelled to
content himself with before because his reason, requiring some-
thing, could find nothing better for its occupation. Criticism
stands to the ordinary school metaphysics exactly in the same
relation as chemistry to alchemy, or as astronomy to fortune-telling
astrology. I guarantee that no one who has comprehended and
thought out the conclusions of criticism, even in these Prole-
gomena,' will ever return to the old sophistical pseudo-science.
He will rather look forward with a kind of pleasure to a meta-
physics, certainly now within his power, which requires no more
preparatory discoveries, and which alone can procure for the
reason permanent satisfaction. For this is an advantage upon
which metaphysics alone can reckon with confidence, among all
possible sciences; namely, that it can be brought to completion
and to a durable position, as it cannot change any further, nor
is it susceptible of any increase through new discoveries: since
the reason does not here find the sources of its knowledge in
objects and in their intuition, which cannot teach it anything,


## p. 8495 (#99) ############################################

IMMANUEL KANT
8495
9
(
»
but in itself; so that when the principles of its possibility are
presented completely, and without any misunderstanding, nothing
remains for pure reason to know a priori, or even with just-
ice to ask. The certain prospect of so definite and perfect a
knowledge has a special attraction about it, even if all its uses
(of which I shall hereafter speak) be set aside.
All false art, all empty wisdom, lasts its time; but it destroys
itself in the end, and its highest cultivation is at the same time
the moment of its decline. That as regards metaphysics this
time has now come, is proved by the state to which it has
declined among all cultivated nations, notwithstanding the zeal
with which every other kind of science is being worked out.
The old arrangement of the university studies preserves its out-
lines still; a single academy of sciences bestirs itself now and
then, by holding out prizes, to induce another attempt to be
made therein: but it is no longer counted among fundamental
sciences; and any one may judge for himself how an intellectu-
ally gifted man to whom the term “great metaphysician” were
applied, would take this well-meant, but scarcely by any one cov-
eted, compliment.
But although the period of the decline of all dogmatic meta-
physics is undoubtedly come, there are many things wanting to
enable us to say that the time of its re-birth by means of a thor-
ough and complete critique of the reason has already appeared.
All transitional phases from one tendency to its opposite pass
through the state of indifference; and this moment is the most
dangerous for an author, but as it seems to me the most favor-
able for the science. For when, through the complete dissolu-
tion of previous combinations, party spirit is extinguished, men's
minds are in the best mood for listening gradually to propos-
als for a combination on another plan. If I say that I hope
that these Prolegomena' will perhaps make research in the
field of criticism more active, and will offer to the general spirit
of philosophy, which seems to be wanting in nourishment on its
speculative side, a new and very promising field for its occupa-
tion, I can already foresee that every one who has trodden unwill-
ingly and with vexation the thorny way I have led him in the
Critique) will ask me on what I ground this hope. I answer,
On the irresistible law of necessity.
That the spirit of man will ever wholly give up metaphysical
investigations, is just as little to be expected as that in order
(


## p. 8496 (#100) ###########################################

8496
IMMANUEL KANT
not always to be breathing bad air we should stop breathing
altogether. Metaphysics will always exist in the world, then;
and what is more, exist with every one, but more especially with
reflecting men, who in default of a public standard will each
fashion it in his own way. Now, what has hitherto been termed
metaphysics can satisfy no acute mind; but to renounce it entirely
is impossible: hence a critique of the pure reason itself must be
at last attempted, and when obtained must be investigated and
subjected to a universal test; because otherwise there are no
means of relieving this pressing requirement, which means some-
thing more than mere thirst for knowledge.
Translation of Ernest Belford Bax.


## p. 8496 (#101) ###########################################

-
语
​

## p. 8496 (#102) ###########################################


«Եր)
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ԵԹ
TOUT
14
JOHN KEATS.


## p. 8496 (#103) ###########################################

$147
11
JOIIN KEITS
11745 1821)
BY LOUISE VOGEY GUINEY
܀ ;i"; »
HTY 1! 1 people who read poetry have a favoritism for Keets;
die is in many reupects the p 'pular hero o. Eglish liter-
ature. He was young, ni ch'virussly devoted to his art;
lie has a mastery of expression almost ur part. ! It is neither
oscure lot plemie, are le has had froin tikili 2! 1,(? trag
iuulemas on other irinds: in Ilv. ), in Terti, rt, in Rimini wd Wila
the VI:1::3'*? . 11 Lanier and Lowril, in Yüts Porn
til Breath, and touch of Keats like an incant":? l'. ! sllat mellom
tij prozira! genius that it shall nid in t.
tie triture of its race: it it slizll byen essenti, ir tt by! "Li’octi.
Viwmi says vulnewhere in his ever 111. 6i ma? ? ? (+1: "How is it
"! ' good! , but reprochet fod; this is one of its attribute
? ? ? :is excellent, hefuful, poiftet, desirable, for its own sake, but
it over iss, and spreads the likenes vi itself uil rould it.
a great gol will impart great good. And as hie mix, 11t have added,
it wi'l hatte derived it. Keats first woke and knew hirsli reiling
Speiser's world of fairy, where abstract harmones Wandt t,
And thri'm livine is all areting,
A: 112! lth is the rossy grouri. ”
TIK
.
Tint Wits really his operring event.
Ilis vlter story is scontri d.
Irtit count as it can that Keats was of commonplace Stoak, born
on the 31st of October, 1795, early orphaned, hainig
Pince Wilste prematurely ilirough the fault of stipri
lefill schooling in his boyfcond and kind frien is the ti
friend's iter to suur him on to achieve his bizonte Pin
funt in a universiiy save as a passing guest, that I
to a country surzen, and got absorbed, liit! . . 1:1. te with
fydusive postai 1:2. in literature; that he was ir pers. ), but
P. : Tiarly wain, with a head and files of dirt ad serious beauty:
21714] that his behaviur in all the relatius von bis was cheerful, dis-
1. . . TESTU! , nieciest, honorable, kind: that his burit brokt. -- but not
"Die of lis anxieties, of which a fevered in vendir was chief,-
6? ! ? *llat le died in exile at Rone on the 24 of Fibruary, 1821, agedi
1. 12-13'-twenty, incertain of the fate of his third and last brok, in
1-532


## p. 8496 (#104) ###########################################


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he has
obscure
then
the bro
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the fute
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only 84
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## p. 8497 (#105) ###########################################

8497
1
JOHN KEATS
(1795-1821)
BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY
N
EARLY all people who read poetry have a favoritism for Keats;
he is in many respects the popular hero of English liter-
ature. He was young, and chivalrously devoted to his art;
he has a mastery of expression almost unparalleled; he is neither
obscure nor polemic; and he has had from the first a most fecundating
influence on other minds: in Hood, in Tennyson, in Rossetti and Mat-
thew Arnold, in Lanier and Lowell, in Yeats and Watson, one feels
the breath and touch of Keats like an incantation. It is a test of the
truly original genius that it shall stand in line with the past and
the future of its race; that it shall be essentially filial and paternal.
Newman says somewhere in his ever lucid manner: “Good is not
only good, but reproductive of good; this is one of its attributes;
nothing is excellent, beautiful, perfect, desirable, for its own sake, but
it overflows, and spreads the likeness of itself all around it.
A great good will impart great good. ” And as he might have added,
it will have derived it. Keats first woke and knew himself reading,
Spenser's world of faëry, where abstract harmonies wander,
.
“And the gloom divine is all around,
And underneath is the mossy ground. ”
That was really his opening event. His outer story is soon told.
Let it count as it can that Keats was of commonplace stock, born
on the 31st of October, 1795, early orphaned, having a small com-
petence wasted prematurely through the fault of others; that he had
careful schooling in his boyhood, and kind friends then and famous
friends after to spur him on to achieve his best, never having set
foot in a university save as a passing guest; that he was apprenticed
to a country surgeon, and got absorbed, little by little and with
exclusive passion, in literature; that he was small in person, but
muscularly made, with a head and face of alert and serious beauty;
and that his behavior in all the relations of life was cheerful, dis-
interested, modest, honorable, kind; that his health broke,— but not
because of his anxieties, of which a fevered love-affair was chief,–
and that he died in exile at Rome on the 23d of February, 1821, aged
five-and-twenty, uncertain of the fate of his third and last book, in
XV-532


## p. 8498 (#106) ###########################################

8498
JOHN KEATS
stard
endom
aut :0 $
caligero
ship is
such bi
Words
cres he
Shelleu
unike
ben
bealth
able,
amo
TUTT
insta
tica
which lay his whole gathered force, his brave bid for human remem-
brance.
Keats's early attempts were certainly over-colored. Endymion,'
despite its soft graces and two enchanting lyric interludes, is a dis-
quieting performance. Yet it turned out to be, as he knew, a rock
under his feet whence he could make a progress, and not a quick-
sand which he had to abandon in order to be saved.
Like Mozart's
or Raphael's, his work is singularly of a piece. His ambition in his
novice days was great and conscious: “I that am ever all athirst for
glory! ” he cries in a sonnet composed in 1817. Everything he wrote
was for a while embroidered and interrupted with manifold invoca-
tions to his Muse, or melodiously irrelevant remarks concerning his
own unworthiness and pious intentions. And there is nothing finer
in the history of English letters than his growth, by self-criticism,
from these molluscous moods into the perception and interpretation
of objective beauty. His dominant qualities, bad and good, exist
from the first, and all along: they seem never to have moved from
their own ground. But they undergo the most lovely transformations;
in his own Hebraic phrase, they “die into life,” into the perfected
splendor of the Keats we know. He embraced discipline. Knowing
no Greek (it was part of Shelley's generous plan, when both were
unwittingly so near the grave, to keep Keats's body warm, and
teach him Greek and Spanish ”), the little London poet turned loyally
to Greek ideals: the most unlikely loadstones, one would think, for
his opulent and inebriate imagination. Towards these ideals, and not
only towards the entrancing mythologies extern to them, he toiled.
Recognizing the richness and redundance of his rebellious fancy, he
therefore set before himself truth, and the calm report of it; height
and largeness; severity, and poise, and restraint. The processes are
perceptible alike in lyric, narrative, and sonnet, taken in the lump
and chronologically; the amazing result is plain at last in the recast
and unfinished Hyperion, and in the incomparable volume of 1820,
containing Lamia,' 'Isabella, (The Eve of Saint Agnes,' and the
Odes. It is as if a dweller in the fen country should elect to build
upon Jura. This may be the award of a vocation and a concentrated
mind, or even the happy instinct of genius. It betokens, no less, sov-
ereignty of another sort. “Keats had flint and iron in him," says Mr.
Matthew Arnold; «he had character. ” Even as the gods gave him
his natural life of the intellect, he matched them at their own game;
for he earned his immortality.
Now, what is the outstanding extraneous feature of Keats's poetry?
It is perhaps the musical and sculptural effect which he can make
with words: a necromancy which he exercises with hardly a rival,
and
TH
LU
a
)
>
among the greatest ); and among these he justly hoped to
(
even


## p. 8499 (#107) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8499
a
stand. Observe that a facility of this sort cannot be natural
endowment, since we must still, as Sir Philip Sidney bewails, “be
put to school to learn our mother-tongue”; and that it implies ascetic
diligence in the artist compassing it. Moreover, Keats's craftsman-
ship is no menace to him. It is true that he carries, in general, no
such hindering burden of thought along his lyre as Donne, Dryden,
Wordsworth, Browning; but neither, once having learned his strength,
does he ever fall into the mere teasing ecstasy of symbolic sound, as
Shelley does often, as Swinburne does more often than not. Keats,
unlike Shelley or a cherub, is not all wing; he stands foursquare”
when he wills, or moves like the men of the Parthenon frieze, with a
health and joyous gravity entirely carnal. The most remarkable of
all his powers is this power of deliciously presenting the inconceiv-
able, without strain or fantasticality, so that it takes rank at once
among laws which any one might have seen and said — laws neces-
sary to man in his higher moods. Neither Virgil, nor Dante, nor
Milton, - although he touches deep truths, and Keats only their beau-
tiful analogies,— has a more illumining habit of speech. Mr. Bradford
Torrey, in a recent essay in the Atlantic Monthly, cited, as master
instances of “verbal magic » in English, a passage from Shakespeare,
another from Wordsworth, which have long had the profound admira-
tion of feeling hearts. These are —
- boughs that shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,
and again —
<< — old unhappy far-off things,
And battles long ago. ”
The condition of the best «magic) is surely that it shall be unac-
countable; but the magnificent lines just cited are not at all so,- at
least fundamentally, to any acquainted with what may be called their
historic context. Shakespeare eyeing the melancholy winter trees as
he writes his sonnet, and sympathetically conscious of the glorious
abbey churches newly dismantled on every side, unroofed, emptied,
discolored, their choral voices hushed; Wordsworth conjecturing the
matter of his Scots girl-gleaner's song to have been (as indeed it
must have been, caught from her aged grandsire's lips at home! )
a memory of the Forty-five, an echo of the romantic Jacobite insur-
rection, enough in itself to inspire poets forever;— these are but
transmuting their every-day tradition and impression into literature.
But the “younger brother » is not so to be tracked; when we come
to the finest definite images of his pages, such as
<Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn,”


## p. 8500 (#108) ###########################################

8500
JOHN KEATS
T
we feel that he lived in Illyria, rather than in the capital of his
Sacred Majesty George the Fourth. Some conception which defies
genesis is under his every stanza; word on word is wrought of mir-
acles. Yet the whole is fragrant of obedience, temperance, labor.
This it is which makes the art of Keats a very heartening spectacle,
over and above its extreme solace and charm; and his own clan will
always be his most vehement adorers, because they, better than any,
have insight into his heroic temper.
Time, accumulatively wise with the imparted second thoughts of
all men of genius, has not failed to make huge excisions in Keats's
dramatic, satiric, and amatory work; and to name the earliest and
the latest verses among utterances forgivably imperfect. But striking
away from Keats's fame all which refuses to cohere, leaves large to
the eye what a noble and endearing shrine of song! Far more effect-
ually than any other at our command, the lad John Keats, being but
heard and seen, bears in upon the docile intelligence what is meant
by pure poesy; the most elemental and tangible, as well as the
most occult and uncataloguable (if one may coin so fierce a word! ) of
mortal pleasures. Although he must always call forth personal love
and reverence, his value is unmistakably super-personal. Keats is the
Celt, the standard-bearer of revealed beauty, among the English, and
carries her colors triumphantly into our actual air.
Louise Amor
ogen Guinen
FROM (THE EVE OF ST. AGNES)
S":
T. Agnes's Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seemed taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel isle by slow degrees,
The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze,


## p. 8501 (#109) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8501
i
Emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails.
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
A casement high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings,
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven; - Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplexed she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed
Her soothèd limbs, and soul fatigued away:
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day:
Blissfully havened both from joy and pain;
Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered,
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferred
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
.


## p. 8502 (#110) ###########################################

8502
JOHN KEATS
-
She hurried at his words, beset with fear,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spear;
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,
Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.
They glide like phantoms into the wide hall;
Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flagon by his side;
The wakeful bloodhound rose and shook his hide,
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns;
By one and one the bolts full easy slide;
The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.
FROM (ENDYMION)
A
THING of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases: it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:


## p. 8503 (#111) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8503
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.
FROM (HYPERION)
D
EEP in the shady sadness of a vale,
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair.
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud.
Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went,
No further than to where his feet had strayed,
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;
While his bowed head seemed listening to the Earth,
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.
It seemed no force could wake him from his place;
But there came one who with a kindred hand
Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low
With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
She was a goddess of the infant world.
Her face was large as that of Memphian Sphinx,
Pedestaled haply in a palace court,
When sages looked to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder laboring up.
.


## p. 8504 (#112) ###########################################

8504
JOHN KEATS
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
M
Y HEART aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, –
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Oh for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth:
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim;
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known, -
The weariness, the fever, and the fret,
Here where men sit and hear each oti groan;
Where palsy shakes a few sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.


## p. 8505 (#113) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8505
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death, -
Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath,-
Now more than ever seems it rich to die;
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown;
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hillside; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:- Do I wake or sleep?


## p. 8506 (#114) ###########################################

8506
JOHN KEATS
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
TH
HOU still unravished bride of quietness !
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time!
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth
What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape ?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal -- yet do not grieve:
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss;
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice ?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er returi.


## p. 8507 (#115) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8507
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
FANCY
E
.
VER 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-lipped fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
*Cloys with tasting: what do then?
Sit thee by the ingle when
The sear fagot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the plowboy'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-overawed,
Fancy, high commissioned: send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring in spite of frost
Beauties that the earth had lost;


## p. 8508 (#116) ###########################################

8508
JOHN KEATS
She will bring thee, altogether,
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-plumed 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
Pearlèd with the self-same shower
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its cellèd 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.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Everything is spoilt by use:
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring. –
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.


## p. 8509 (#117) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8509
TO AUTUMN
SES
EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store ?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


## p. 8510 (#118) ###########################################

8510
JOHN KEATS
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
A"
H, WHAT can ail thee, wretched wight, *
Alone and palely loitering ?
The sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone ?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faëry's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faöry's song.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone:
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
“I love thee true. ”
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gazed and sighèd deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes —
So kissed to sleep.
And there we slumbered on the moss,
And there I dreamed - ah! woe betide -
* In the version by Lord Houghton of this poem, this line and its repetition
in the second stanza run, «Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! ) and that
form of the line is often met, with other changes.


## p. 8511 (#119) ###########################################

JOHN KEATS
8511
The latest dream I ever dreamed
On the cold hillside.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd — "La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall! »
I saw their starved lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hillside.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
SONNET
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER
M
UCH have I traveled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly States and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific - and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
SONNET
ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES
M* Weighs heavily
Y spirit is too weak: mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep;
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die,
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep


## p. 8512 (#120) ###########################################

8512
JOHN KEATS
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time — with a billowy main –
A sun a shadow of a magnitude.
SONNET
WRITTEN ON A BLANK PAGE IN SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS,
FACING A Lover's COMPLAINT)
B
ܬ܀
RIGHT star, would I were steadfast as thou art:
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
No- yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever- - or else swoon to death.


## p. 8513 (#121) ###########################################

8513
JOHN KEBLE
(1792–1866)
AG
He Christian Year,' a small volume of religious poems, ap-
peared in 1827. The verses had all the scholarly simplicity
resulting from classical study, and critics quickly recognized
artistic workmanship. But the immediate and astonishing popu-
larity of the work was due to its personal character. It was the
most soothing, tranquillizing, subduing work of the day,” said New-
man: “if poems can be found to enliven in dejection and to comfort
in anxiety, to cool the over-sanguine, to refresh the weary, and to
awe the worldly, to instill resignation into
the impatient and calmness into the fearful
and agitated, they are these. ” Many men
and women found solace in these voicings
of their own religious life.
The author, John Keble, was not ambi-
tious of literary fame. He had written his
poems from time to time as he felt the
need of self-expression, and it was only
after long persuasion from his friends that
he consented to make them public.
There is something of the mellow bright-
ness of a summer Sunday about his life and
work. “Dear John Keble,” as his associates
JOHN KEBLE
called him, was a most ardent churchman.
With a rare patience and sympathy for repentant sinners he combined
an implacable condemnation of wrong-doing, which won him respect
as well as love. Throughout the religious storm which, emanating
from Oxford, shook all England, - which forced John Henry Newman
unwillingly away from his friends and his church, — Keble was
stanch support to more vacillating spirits. His sermon upon apos-
tasy preached in 1833 stirred up people's consciences, and may be
said to have initiated the Tractarian movement. He himself wrote
several of the more important «Tracts for the Times. '
His entire life was passed in intimate connection with the church.
He was born at Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 1792, but was very young
when his father became vicar of Coln-St. -Aldwynd. The elder Keble
a sweet-natured man and a fine classical student, who took
charge himself of his son's early education; and so successfully that

(
a
was
XV-533


## p. 8514 (#122) ###########################################

8514
JOHN KEBLE
was
at fifteen John Keble was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
From that time the University became very dear to him; and later
he exercised an important influence over a long succession of under-
graduates. He was appointed a Fellow of Oriel College in 1811, and
a tutor in Oxford for several years. Then he returned to his
country home, and led a serene yet earnest life with his family while
serving as his father's curate. The great success of The Christian
Year resulted in his appointment as professor of poetry at Oxford in
1833,— a congenial position, which he filled most capably. Soon after
his father's death in 1835, he married and became vicar of Hursley
near Winchester, where he lived until his death in 1866.
He was not a prolific writer, and his occasional poems were
carefully and frequently remodeled. In 1846 he published a second
volume, called “Lyra Innocentium”; but although graceful and pleas-
ing, it was less cordially received than (The Christian Year. '
THE NIGHTINGALE
L
ESSONS sweet of spring returning,
Welcome to the thoughtful heart!
May I call ye sense of learning,
Instinct pure, or heaven-taught art ?
Be your title what it may,
Sweet and lengthening April day,
While with you the soul is free,
Ranging wild o'er hill and lea.
Soft as Memnon's harp at morning
To the inward ear devout,
Touched by light, with heavenly warning
Your transporting chords ring out.
Every leaf in every nook,
Every wave in every brook,
Chanting with a solemn voice,
Minds us of our better choice.
Needs no show of mountain hoary,
Winding shore or deepening glen,
Where the landscape in its glory
Teaches truth to wandering men:
Give true hearts but earth and sky,
And some flowers to bloom and die, -
Homely scenes and simple views
Lowly thoughts may best infuse.


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