A PROPHECY :

TO GEORGE KEATS IN AMERICA

In a letter to his brother and his wife, October 24, 1818, Keats says: If I had a prayer to make for any great good, next to Tom's recovery, it should be that one of your children should be the first American Poet. I have a great mind to make a prophecy, and they say prophecies work on their own fulfilment.'

'Tis the witching time of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the Stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen.
For what listen they?

For a song and for a charm,

See they glisten in alarm,

And the Moon is waxing warm

To hear what I shall say.

Moon! keep wide thy golden ears

Hearken, Stars! and hearken, Spheres! -
Hearken, thou eternal Sky!

I sing an infant's Lullaby,
O pretty lullaby!

Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my Lullaby!

Though the Rushes, that will make
Its cradle, still are in the lake -
Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree -
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep-
Listen, Starlight, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!

Child, I see thee! Child, I've found thee
Midst of the quiet all around thee!
Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee!
And thy mother sweet is nigh thee!
Child, I know thee! Child no more,
But a Poet evermore!

Unharm'd, and on the strings Paddles a little tune, and sings, With dumb endeavour sweetly Bard art thou completely! Little child

O' th' western wild, Bard art thou completely! Sweetly with dumb endeavour, A Poet now or never, Little child

O' th' western wild, A Poet now or never!

A LITTLE EXTEMPORE

Inclosed in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, written April 15, 1819.

WHEN they were come into the Faery's Court
They rang- no one at home-all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faeries do
For Faries be as humans lovers true.
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild,
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd,
And where the very brooks, as if afraid,
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
'No one at home!' the fretful Princess cry'd;
And all for nothing such a dreary ride,
And all for nothing my new diamond cross;
No one to see my Persian feathers toss,
No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool,
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.

Ape, Dwarf, and Fool, why stand you gaping there,

Burst the door open, quick or I declare
I'll switch you soundly and in pieces tear.'
The Dwarf began to tremble, and the Ape
Star'd at the Fool, the Fool was all agape,

The Princess grasp'd her switch, but just in

time

The dwarf with piteous face began to rhyme.
'O mighty Princess, did you ne'er hear tell
What your poor servants know but too too
well?

Know you the three great crimes in Faeryland?
The first, alas! poor Dwarf, I understand,
I made a whipstock of a faery's wand;
The next is snoring in their company;
The next, the last, the direst of the three,
Is making free when they are not at home.
I was a Prince
a baby prince - my doom,
You see, I made a wl ipstock of a wand,
My top has henceforth slept in faery land.
He was a Prince, the Fool, a grown-up Prince,
But he has never been a King's son since

He fell a snoring at a faery Ball.

Yon poor Ape was a Prince, and he poor thing Picklock'd a faery's boudoir - now no king But ape so pray your highness stay awhile, 'Tis sooth indeed, we know it to our sorrowPersist and you may be an ape to-morrow.' While the Dwarf spake, the Princess, all for spite,

Peel'd the brown hazel twig to lily white, Clench'd her small teeth, and held her lips apart,

Try'd to look unconcern'd with beating heart.
They saw her highness had made up her mind,
A-quavering like the reeds before the wind-
And they had had it, but O happy chance!
The Ape for very fear began to dance
And grinn'd as all his ugliness did ache
She staid her vixen fingers for his sake,
He was so very ugly: then she took
Her pocket-mirror and began to look
First at herself and then at him, and then
She smil'd at her own beauteous face again.
Yet for all this- for all her pretty face
She took it in her head to see the place.
Women gain little from experience
Either in Lovers, husbands, or expense.
The more their beauty the more fortune too-
Beauty before the wide world never knew
So each fair reasons- tho' it oft miscarries.
She thought her pretty face would please the
fairies.

-

'My darling Ape, I wont whip you to-day,
Give me the Picklock sirrah and go play.'
They all three wept but counsel was as vain
As crying cup biddy to drops of rain.

Yet lingering by did the sad Ape forth draw
The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.
The Princess took it, and dismounting straight
Tripp'd in blue silver'd slippers to the gate
And touch'd the wards, the Door full courteous
Opened she enter'd with her servants three.
Again it clos'd and there was nothing seen
But the Mule grazing on the herbage green.
End of Canto XII.

--

At the close of a letter, April 17, 1819, to his sister Fanny, Keats writes: Mr. and Mrs. Dilke are coming to dine with us to-day [at Wentworth Place]. They will enjoy the country after Westminster. O there is nothing like fine weather, and health, and Books, and a fine country, and a contented Mind, and diligent habit of reading and thinking, and an amulet against the ennui- and, please heaven, a little claret wine cool out of a cellar a mile deep with a few or a good many ratafia cakes - a rocky basin to bathe in, a strawberry bed to say your prayers to Flora in, a pad nag to go you ten miles or so; two or three sensible people to chat with; two or three spiteful folks to spar with; two or three odd fishes to laugh at and two or three numskulls to argue with instead of using dumb bells on a rainy day.'

-

Two or three Posies

With two or three simples-
Two or three Noses

With two or three pimples -
Two or three wise men
And two or three ninny's —
Two or three purses

And two or three guineas

Two or three raps

At two or three doors-
Two or three naps
Of two or three hours-
Two or three Cats

And two or three mice

Two or three sprats
At a very great price
Two or three sandies

TO GEORGE KEATS

WRITTEN IN SICKNESS

This is from a transcript by George Keats, and dated 1819; but Keats's letters do not disclose any sickness during that year which would be likely to call forth the lines, and the date is probably 1820, if indeed we are author

ized to refer this poem to John Keats. It is not impossible that it was written by Tom Keats in 1818.

BROTHER belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek:
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength re-
gain,

Well may thy brow the placid glow retain

Of sweet content and thy pleas'd eye may speak

The conscious self applause, but should I seek To utter what this heart can feel, - Ah! vain Were the attempt! Yet kindest friends while o'er

My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness The being whom your cares could e'en restore, From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess

The feelings which these lips can ne'er express?

Feelings, deep fix'd in grateful memory's store.