Though the poem is thus headed in the 1817 volume, where it is dated November 18, 1816, it might as properly have the heading given it in Tom Keats's copybook: 'Written to his Brother Tom on his Birthday,' with the same date.

SMALL, busy flames play through the freshlaid coals,

And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep

Like whispers of the household gods that keep

A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.

And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,

Your eyes are fix'd, as in poetic sleep, Upon the lore so voluble and deep, That aye at fall of night our care condoles. This is your birth-day, Tom, and I rejoice That thus it passes smoothly, quietly: Many such eves of gently whisp'ring noise May we together pass, and calmly try What are this world's true joys, - ere the great Voice,

From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.

ADDRESSED TO BENJAMIN

ROBERT HAYDON

The first of these two sonnets was sent by Keats with this brief note: November 20, 1816. My dear Sir- Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear sending you the following. In his prompt acknowledgment Haydon suggested the omission of the last four words in the penultimate line, and proposed sending the sonnet to Wordsworth. Keats re

letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and shall be kept by me as a stimulus to exertion I begin to fix my eye upon one horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours in regard to the Ellipsis, and I glory in it. The Idea of your sending it to Wordsworth put me out of breath. You know with what Reverence I would send my Well-wishes to him.' The presentation copy of the 1817 volume bears the inscription To W. Wordsworth with the Author's sincere Reverence.' Both sonnets were printed, but in the reverse order in the 1817 volume, and the ellipsis was preserved.

What when a stout unbending champion

awes

Envy, and Malice to their native sty? Unnumber'd souls breathe out a still applause,

Proud to behold him in his country's eye.

TO KOSCIUSKO

First published in The Examiner, where it is dated 'Dec., 1816.' It is included in the 1817 volume.

GOOD Kosciusko, thy great name alone

Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;

It comes upon us like the glorious pealing Of the wide spheres an everlasting tone. And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown,

The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing,

Are changed to harmonies, for ever stealing

Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.

It tells me too, that on a happy day,

When some good spirit walks upon the earth,

Thy name with Alfred's, and the great

Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance?
Or when serenely wand'ring in a trance
Of sober thought? Or when starting

away,

With careless robe, to meet the morning

ray,

Thou spar'st the flowers in thy mazy dance? Haply 't is when thy ruby lips part sweetly,

And so remain, because thou listenest: But thou to please wert nurtured so completely

That I can never tell what mood is best. I shall as soon pronounce which Grace more neatly

Trips it before Apollo than the rest.

STANZAS

There is no date given to this poem by Lord Houghton, who published it in the 1848 edition, and no reference occurs to it in the Letters. It was probably an early careless poem, very likely a set of album verses.

IN a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember

Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 't were so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any

Writh'd not at passèd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,

And, by the wandering melody, may trace Which way the tender-legged linnet hops. Oh! what a power has white simplicity! What mighty power has this gentle story! I, that do ever feel athirst for glory, Could at this moment be content to lie Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings

Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES

This and the following sonnet were printed in The Examiner, March 9, 1817, and reprinted in Life, Letters and Literary Remains.

My spirit is too weak-mortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,

And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky. Yet 't is a gentle luxury to weep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,

Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceivèd glories of the brain

Bring round the heart an indescribable 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.

TO HAYDON