Author
|
Topic: Keats
|
Lialei Knowflake Posts: 1675 From: Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted October 09, 2007 09:34 AM
To Hope When by my solitary hearth I sit, 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. John Keats February, 1815.
IP: Logged |
Lialei Knowflake Posts: 1675 From: Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted October 09, 2007 09:39 AM
A Song of Opposites "Under the flag Of each his faction, they to battle bring Their embryon atoms." - Milton WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow, Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather; Come to-day, and come to-morrow, I do love you both together! I love to mark sad faces in fair weather; And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder; Fair and foul I love together. Meadows sweet where flames are under, And a giggle at a wonder; Visage sage at pantomine; Funeral, and steeple-chime; Infant playing with a skull; Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull; Nightshade with the woodbine kissing; Serpents in red roses hissing; Cleopatra regal-dress'd With the aspic at her breast; Dancing music, music sad, Both together, sane and mad; Muses bright and muses pale; Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; - Laugh and sigh, and laugh again; Oh the sweetness of the pain! Muses bright, and muses pale, Bare your faces of the veil; Let me see; and let me write Of the day, and of the night - Both together: - let me slake All my thirst for sweet heart-ache! Let my bower be of yew, Interwreath'd with myrtles new; Pines and lime-trees full in bloom, And my couch a low grass-tomb.
Posthumous and fugitive Poems IP: Logged |
Lialei Knowflake Posts: 1675 From: Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted October 09, 2007 09:43 AM
A draught of Sunshine HENCE Burgundy, Claret, and Port, Away with old Hock and madeira, Too earthly ye are for my sport; There's a beverage brighter and clearer. Instead of a piriful rummer, My wine overbrims a whole summer; My bowl is the sky, And I drink at my eye, Till I feel in the brain A Delphian pain - Then follow, my Caius! then follow: On the green of the hill We will drink our fill Of golden sunshine, Till our brains intertwine With the glory and grace of Apollo! God of the Meridian, And of the East and West, To thee my soul is flown, And my body is earthward press'd. - It is an awful mission, A terrible division; And leaves a gulph austere To be fill'd with worldly fear. Aye, when the soul is fled To high above our head, Affrighted do we gaze After its airy maze, As doth a mother wild, When her young infant child Is in an eagle's claws - And is not this the cause Of madness? - God of Song, Thou bearest me along Through sights I scarce can bear: O let me, let me share With the hot lyre and thee, The staid Philosophy. Temper my lonely hours, And let me see thy bowers More unalarm'd! Posthumous and fugitive Poems
IP: Logged |
Lialei Knowflake Posts: 1675 From: Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted October 09, 2007 09:49 AM
Ode to Fanny PHYSICIAN Nature! Let my spririt blood! O ease my heart of verse and let me rest; Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast. A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme; Let me begin my dream. I come - I see thee, as thou standest there, Beckon me not into the wintry air. Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears, And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, - To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears A smile of such delight, As brillinat and as bright, As when with reavished, aching, vassal eyes, Lost in soft amaze, I gaze, I gaze!
Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast? What stare outfaces now my silver moon! Ah! keep that hand unravished at the least; Let, let, the amorous burn - But pr'ythee, do not turn The current of your heart from me so soon. O! save, in charity, The quickest pulse for me.
Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe Voluptuous visions into the warm air; Though swimming through the dance's dangerous wreath, Be like an April day, Smiling and cold and gay, A temperate lilly, temperate as fair; Then, Heaven! there will be A warmer June for me.
Why, this, you'll say, my Fanny! is not true: Put your soft hand upon your snowy side, Where the heart beats: confess - 'tis nowthing new - Must not a woman be A feather on the sea, Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide? Of as uncertain speed As blow-ball from the mead?
I know it - and to know it is despair To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny! Whose heart goes fluttering for you every where, Nor, when away you roam, Dare keep its wretched home, Love, love alone, his pains severe and many: Then, loveliest! keep me free, From torturing jealousy.
Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above The poor, the fading, brief, pride of an hour; Let none profane my Holy See of love, Or with a rude hand break The sacramental cake: Let none else touch the just new-budded flower; If not - may my eyes close, Love! on their lost repose.
IP: Logged |
juniperb Knowflake Posts: 6452 From: Blue Star Kachina Registered: Mar 2002
|
posted October 09, 2007 01:26 PM
Be still my heart! Thank you Lialei Keats poetry left an indelible mark in the history of poetry. Three wonderful Poets wrote epitaths for him. For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty Not writ in water nor in mist, Sweet lyric throat, thy name. Thy singing lips that cold death kissed Have seared his own with flame. -- Countee Cullen "Keats" The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep; It is midsummer, but the air is cold; Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep. Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name Was writ in water." And was this the meed Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write: "The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "The Grave of Keats" Rid of the world's injustice, and his pain, He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue: Taken from life when life and love were new The youngest of the martyrs here is lain, Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew, But gentle violets weeping with the dew Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain. O proudest heart that broke for misery! O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene! O poet-painter of our English Land! Thy name was writ in water--it shall stand: And tears like mine will keep thy memory green, As Isabella did her Basil-tree. -- Oscar Wilde http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1497.html
------------------ ~ What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~ - George Eliot IP: Logged |
Heart--Shaped Cross Knowflake Posts: 5086 From: 11/6/78 11:38am Boston, MA Registered: Aug 2004
|
posted October 09, 2007 02:28 PM
IP: Logged | |