and ardent mind avow principles hostile to those cal insincerity. Keats belonged to a school of who set up for its enemies-if he be but the friend politics which they from their ambush anathemaof a friend openly opposed to them, it is enough; tized :—hence, and hence alone, their malice toand the worst is, that the hostility displayed is wards him. neither limited by truth and candor, sound princi- Keats was, as a poet, like a rich fruit-tree which ples of criticism, humanity, or honorable feeling: the gardener has not pruned of its luxuriance: it fights with all weapons, in the dark or in the time, had it been allotted him by Heaven, would light, by craft, or in any mode to obtain its bitter have seen it as trim and rich as any brother of the objects. The critics who hastened the end of garden. It is and will ever be regretted by the Keats, had his works been set before them as being readers of his works, that he lingered no longer those of an unknown writer, would have acknow- among living men, to bring to perfection what he ledged their talent, and applauded where it was meditated, to contribute to British literature a due, for their attacks upon him were not made greater name, and to delight the lovers of true from lack of judgment, but from wilful hostility. poetry with the rich melody of his musically emOne knows not how to characterize such demonia-bodied thoughts.

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What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the A THING of beauty is a joy for ever: reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, Its loveliness increases; it will never immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish at- Pass into nothingness; but still will keep tempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two A bower quiet for us, and a sleep first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing are not of such completion as to warrant their passing Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing the press; nor should they, if I thought a year's cas- A flowery band to bind us to the earth, tigation would do them any good-it will not: the Spite of despondence, of th' inhuman dearth foundations are too sandy. It is just that this youngster Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, should die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways some hope that while it is dwindling I may be plot- Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, ting, and fitting myself for verses fit to live. 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: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a punishment: but no feeling man will e forward to inflict it: he will leave me alone, with He conviction that there is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do look with a jealous eye, to the honor of English literature.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceed mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of, must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.

I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece, and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it

farewell.

TEIGNMOUTH, April 10, 1818.

For one short hour; no, even as the trees
Nor do we merely feel these essences
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.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,

Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
Into o'erhanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequester'd deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb stray'd far adown those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds 't was believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By any wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay, great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,

Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders pulsed tenfold,
To feel this sunrise and its glories old.

Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who, gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave

Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,

To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking Through copse-clad valleys,-ere their death, o'er taking

The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmer'd light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer showing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue falter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd's song;
Each having a white wicker over-brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'erflowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:

Edged round with dark tree-tops? through which a Some idly trail'd their sheep-hooks on the ground

dove

Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy fantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre

And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,

Begirt with ministering looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,

And after him his sacred vestments swept.

From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full

Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull·
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.

Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh, By all the trembling mazes that she ran,

"O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,

Stood silent round the shrine: each look was changed What time thou wanderest at eventide