tent with this fac simile of the rough plan of Aunt Dinah's Counterpane.* Your most affectionate Brother JOHN KEATS. Reynolds shall hear from me soon. 6. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS Carisbrooke, April 17th [1817]. MY DEAR REYNOLDS Ever since I wrote to my Brothers from Southampton I have been in a taking and at this moment I am about to become settled for I have unpacked my books, put them into a snug corner, pinned up Haydon, Mary Queen of Scots, and Milton with his daughters in a row. In the passage I found a head of Shakspeare which I had not before seen. It is most likely the same that George spoke so well of, for I like it extremely. Well this head I have hung over my Books, just above the three in a row, having first discarded a French Ambassador now this alone is a good morning's work. Yesterday I went to Shanklin, which occasioned a great debate in my mind whether I should live there or at Carisbrooke. Shanklin is a most beautiful place Sloping wood and meadow ground reach round the Chine, which is a cleft between the Cliffs of the depth of nearly 300 feet at least. This cleft is filled with trees and bushes in the narrow part, and as it widens becomes bare, if it were not for primroses on one side, which spread to the very verge of the Sea, and some fishermen's huts on the other, perched midway in the Balustrades of beautiful green Hedges along their steps down to the sands. But the sea, Jack, the sea the little waterfall then the white cliff. then St. Catherine's Hill-'the sheep in the meadows, the cows in the corn.' Then, why are you at Carisbrooke? say you. Because, in the first place, I should be at twice the Expense, and three times the inconvenience - next that from here I can see your continent from a little hill close by the whole north Angle of the Isle of Wight, with the water between us. In the 3rd place, I see Carisbrooke Castle from my window, and have found several delightful wood-alleys, and copses, and quick freshes. As for primroses- the Island ought to be calied Primrose Island that is, if the nation of Cowslips agree thereto, of which there are divers Clans just beginning to lift up their heads. Another reason of my fixing is, that I am more in reach of the places around me. I intend to walk over the Island east West North South. I have not seen many specimens of Ruins -I don't think however I shall ever see one to surpass Carisbrooke Castle. The trench is overgrown with the smoothest turf, and the Walls with ivy. The Keep within side is one Bower of ivy- -a colony of Jackdaws have been there for many years. I dare I have seen many a descendant of some old cawer who peeped through the Bars at Charles the first, when he was there in Confinement. On the road from Cowes to Newport I saw some extensive Barracks, which disgusted me extremely with the Government for placing such a Nest of Debauchery in so beautiful a place. I asked a man on the Coach about this- and he said that the people had been spoiled. In the room where I slept at Newport, I found this on the Window-'O Isle spoilt by the milatary! . . . say The wind is in a sulky fit, and I feel that it would be no bad thing to be the favourite of some Fairy, who would give one the power of seeing how our Friends got on at a Distance. I should like, of all Loves, a sketch of you and Tom and George in ink which Haydon will do if you tell him how I want them. From want of regular rest I have been rather narvus - and the passage in Lear —‘Do you not hear the sea?' has haunted me intensely. [Here follows the sonnet On the Sea,' p. 37.] April 18th. Will you have the goodness to do this? Borrow a Botanical Dictionary - turn to the words Laurel and Prunus, show the explanations to your sisters and Mrs. Dilke and without more ado let them send me the Cups Basket and Books they trifled and put off and off while I was in town. Ask them what they can say for themselves ask Mrs. Dilke wherefore she does so distress me let me know how Jane has her health-the Weather is unfavourable for her. Tell George and Tom to write. I'll tell you what on the 23d was Shakspeare born. Now if I should receive a letter from you and another from my Brothers on that day 't would be a parlous good thing. Whenever you write say a word or two on some Passage in Shakspeare that may have come rather new to you, which must be continually happening, notwithstanding that we read the same Play forty times-for instance, the following from the Tempest never struck me so forcibly as at present, 'Urchins Shall, for the vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee How can I help bringing to your mind the line In the dark backward and abysm of timeI find I cannot exist without Poetry without eternal Poetry-half the day will not do the whole of it - I began with a little, but habit has made me a Leviathan. I had become all in a Tremble from not having written anything of late - the Sonnet overleaf did me good. I slept the better last night for it - this Morning, however, I am nearly as bad again. Just now I opened Spenser, and the first Lines I saw were these. The noble heart that harbours virtuous thought, And is with child of glorious great intent, Can never rest until it forth have brought Th' eternal brood of glory excellent - ' Let me know particularly about Haydon, ask him to write to me about Hunt, if it be MY DEAR HUNT — The little gentleman that sometimes lurks in a gossip's bowl, ought to have come in the very likeness of a roasted crab, and choaked me outright for not answering your letter ere this: however, you must not suppose that I was in town to receive it: no, it followed me to the Isle of Wight, and I got it just as I was going to pack up for Margate, for reasons which you anon shall hear. On arriving at this treeless affair, I wrote to my brother George to request C. C. C. to do the thing you wot of respecting Rimini; and George tells me he has undertaken it with great pleasure; so I hope there has been an understanding between you for many proofs: C. C. C. is well acquainted with Bensley. Now why did you not send the key of your cupboard, which, I know, was full of papers? We would have locked them all in a trunk, together with those you told me to destroy, which indeed I did not do, for fear of demolishing receipts, there not being a more unpleasant thing in the world (saving a thousand and one others) than to pay a bill twice. Mind you, old Wood 's a' very varmint,' shrouded in covetousness: and now I am upon a horrid subject - what a horrid one you were upon last Sunday, and well you handled it. The last Examiner was a battering-ram against Christianity, blasphemy, Tertullian, Erasmus, Sir Philip Sidney; and then the dreadful Petzelians and their expiation by blood; and do Christians shudder at the same thing in a newspaper which they attribute to their God in its most aggravated form? What is to be the end of this? I must mention Hazlitt's Southey. O that he had left out the grey hairs; or that they had been in any other paper not concluding with such a thunderclap! That sentence about making a page of the feeling of a whole life, appears to me like a whale's back in the sea of prose. I ought to have said a word on Shakspeare's Christianity. There are two which I have not looked over with you, touching the thing: the one for, the other against: that in favour is in Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene ii.— Isab. Alas, alas! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the 'vantage best have took, Found out the remedy. That against is in Twelfth Night, Act III. Scene ii. Maria. For there is no Christian that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. Before I come to the Nymphs, I must get through all disagreeables. I went to the Isle of Wight, thought so much about poetry, so long together, that I could not get to sleep at night; and, moreover, I know not how it was, I could not get wholesome food. By this means, in a week or so, I became not over capable in my upper stories, and set off pell-mell for Margate, at least a hundred and fifty miles, because, forsooth, I fancied that I should like my old lodging here, and could contrive to do without trees. Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource. However, Tom is with me at present, and we are very comfortable. We intend, though, to get among some trees. How have you got on among them? How are the Nymphs? I suppose they have led -- you a fine dance. Where are you now? in Judea, Cappadocia, or the parts of Libya about Cyrene? Stranger from Heaven, Hues, and Prototypes,' I wager you have given several new turns to the old saying, Now the maid was fair and pleasant to look on,' as well as made a little variation in Once upon a time.' Perhaps, too, you have rather varied, 'Here endeth the first lesson.' Thus I hope you have made a horseshoe business of unsuperfluous life,' 'faint bowers,' and fibrous roots. I vow that I have been down in the mouth lately at this work. These last two days, however, I have felt more confident I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet more than other men, seeing how great a thing it is, how great things are to be gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame, that at last the idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaethon. Yet 't is a disgrace to fail, even in a huge attempt; and at this moment I drive the thought from me. I began my poem about a fortnight since, and have done some every day, except travelling ones. Perhaps I may have done a good deal for the time, but it appears such a pin's point to me, that I will not copy any When I consider that so many of these pin-points go to form a bodkin-point (God send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in its modern sense!), and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but continual uphill journeying. Now is there anything more unpleasant (it may come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the goal at last? But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea, where I hope they will breed storms violent enough to block up all exit from Russia. Does Shelley go on telling strange stories of the deaths of kings? Tell him, there are strange stories of the deaths of poets. out. Some have died before they were conceived. How do you make that out, Master Vellum?' Does Mrs. S. cut bread and butter as neatly as ever? Tell her to procure some fatal scissors, and cut the thread of life of all to-be-disappointed poets. Does Mrs. Hunt tear linen as straight as ever? Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves. Remember me to them all; to Miss Kent and the little ones all. Your sincere Friend JOHN KEATS alias JUNKETS. You shall hear where we move. 8. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON Margate, Saturday Eve [May 10, 1817]. MY DEAR HAYDON, 'Let Fame, that all pant after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs, And so grace us in the disgrace of death: When spite of cormorant devouring Time The endeavour of this present breath may buy That Honour which shall bate his Scythe's keen edge And make us heirs of all eternity.' Love's Labour's Lost, I. i. 1-7. To think that I have no right to couple myself with you in this speech would be death to me, so I have e'en written it, and I pray God that our brazen tombs' be nigh neighbours. It cannot be long first; the endeavour of this present breath' will soon be over, and yet it is as well to breathe freely during our sojourn - it is as well as if you have not been teased with that Money affair, that bill-pestilence. However, I must think that difficulties nerve the Spirit of a Man - they make our Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Passion. The Trumpet of Fame is as a tower of Strength, the ambitious bloweth it and is safe. I suppose, by your telling me not to give way to forebodings, George has mentioned to you what I have lately said in my Letters to him - truth is I have been in such a state of Mind as to read over my Lines and hate them. I am one that gathers Samphire, dreadful trade' the Cliff of Poesy towers above me yet when Tom who meets with some of Pope's Homer in Plutarch's Lives reads some of those to me they seem like Mice to mine. I read and write about eight hours a day. There is an old saying 'well begun is half done' 't is a bad one. I would use instead, 'Not begun at all till half done;' so according to that I have not begun my Poem and consequently (à priori) can say nothing about it. Thank God! I do begin arduously where I leave off, notwithstanding occasional depressions; and I hope for the support of a High Power while I climb this little eminence, and especially in my Years of more momentous Labour. I remember your saying that you had notions of a good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought, for things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakspeare this Presider? When in the Isle of Wight I met with a Shakspeare in the Passage of the House at which I lodged - it comes nearer to my idea of him than any I have seen I was but there a Week, yet the old woman made me take it with me though I went off in a hurry. Do you not think this is ominous of good? I am glad you say every man of great views is at times tormented as I am. Sunday after [May 11] This Morning I received a letter from George by which it appears that Money Troubles are to follow us up for some time to come perhaps for always — these vexations are a great hindrance to one - they are not like Envy and detraction stimulants to further exertion as being immediately relative and reflected on at the same time with the prime object - but rather like a nettle leaf or two in your bed. So now I revoke my Promise of finishing my Poem by the Autumn which I should have done had I gone on as I have done — but I car not write while my spirit is fevered in a contrary direction and I am now sure of having plenty of it this Summer. At this moment I am in no enviable Situation I feel that I am not in a Mood to write any to-day; and it appears that the loss of it is the beginning of all sorts of irregularities. I am extremely glad that a time must come when everything will leave not a wrack behind. You tell me never to despair I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying - truth is I have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at intervals - it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumblingblock I have to fear I may even say that it is likely to be the cause of my disappointment. However every ill has its share of good-this very bane would at any time enable me to look with an obstinate eye on the Devil Himself - aye to be as proud of being the lowest of the human race as Alfred could be in being of the highest. I feel confident I should have been a rebel angel had the opportunity been mine. I am very sure that you do love me as your very Brother I have seen it in your continual anxiety for me- - and I assure you that your welfare and fame is and will be a chief pleasure to me all my Life. I know no one but you who can be fully sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all what is called comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done and to die in six hours could plans be brought to concluthe looking upon the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth and its contents, as materials to form greater things- that is to say ethereal things - but here I am talking like a Madman, greater things than our Creator himself made!! sions Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great Poet -or one of those beings who are privileged to wear out their Lives in the pursuit of Honor- how comfortable a feel it is to feel that such a Crime must bring its heavy Penalty? That if one be a Self-deluder accounts must be balanced? I am glad you are hard at Work-'t will now soon be done I long to see Wordsworth's as well as to have mine in: 8 but I would rather not show my face in Town till the end of the Year-if that will be time enough if not I shall be disappointed if you do not write for me even when you think best. I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare—indeed I shall I think never read any other Book much. Now this might lead me into a long Confab but I desist. I am very near agreeing with Hazlitt that Shakspeare is enough for us. By the by what a tremendous Southean article his last was I wish he had left out 'grey hairs.' It was very gratifying to meet your remarks on the manuscript - I was reading Anthony and Cleopatra when I got the Paper and there are several Passages applicable to the events you commentate. You say that he arrived by degrees and not by any single struggle to the height of his ambition and that his Life had been as common in particulars as other Men's. Shakspeare makes Enobarb say Eros. |