DEDICATION.

G

TO LEIGH HUNT, Esq.

LORY and loveliness have pass'd away;
For if we wander out in early morn,

No wreathed incense do we see upborne
Into the east, to meet the smiling day:

No crowd of nymphs soft voic'd and young, and gay,
In woven baskets bringing ears of corn,

Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn
The shrine of Flora in her early May.
But there are left delights as high as these,
And I shall ever bless my destiny,
That in a time, when under pleasant trees
Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free

A leafy luxury, seeing I could please

With these poor offerings, a man like thee.

Readers of Charles Cowden Clarke's Recollections of Keats, printed in the present edition, will remember the statement, still appropriate here, that, "on the evening when the last proof sheet [of the 1817 volume] was brought from the printer, it was accompanied by the information that if a dedication to the book was intended it must be sent forthwith.' Whereupon he withdrew to a side table, and in the buzz of a mixed conversation (for there were several friends in the room) he composed and brought to Charles Ollier, the publisher, the Dedication Sonnet to Leigh Hunt." The first of the three Sonnets to Keats in Hunt's Foliage forms a fitting reply to this; and the three will be found in the Appendix,

[THE Short Pieces in the middle of the Book, as well as some of the Sonnets, were written at an earlier period than the rest of the Poems.]

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride

Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,

Their scantly leav'd, and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept

On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept

A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves:
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;
To picture out the quaint, and curious bending

Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending;

Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free

As though the fanning wings of Mercury

5

IO

15

20

(1) Leigh Hunt tells us in Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries that "this poem was suggested to Keats by a delightful summer's-day, as he stood beside the gate that leads from the Battery on Hampstead Heath into a field by Caen Wood."

(12) Hunt calls this (see Appendix) "a fancy, founded, as all beautiful fancies are, on a strong sense of what really exists or occurs."

Had play'd upon my heels: I was light-hearted,

And many pleasures to my vision started;
So I straightway began to pluck a posey
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy.

25

A bush of May flowers with the bees about them;

Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them;

30

And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them

Moist, cool and green; and shade the violets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

A filbert hedge with wild briar overtwin'd,
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind

35

Upon their summer thrones; there too should be
The frequent chequer of a youngling tree,

That with a score of light green brethren shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:

40

Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters
Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters

The spreading blue bells: it may haply mourn
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn

From their fresh beds, and scatter'd thoughtlessly

45

50

That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,

55

(37-41) Of this passage Hunt says, "Any body who has seen a throng of young beeches, furnishing those natural clumpy seats at the root, must recognize the truth and grace of this description." He adds that the remainder of the poem, especially verses 47 to 86, "affords an exquisite proof of close observation of nature as well as the most luxuriant fancy."

And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.

60

Linger awhile upon some bending planks

That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:

They will be found softer than ring-dove's cooings.

How silent comes the water round that bend;

65

Not the minutest whisper does it send

To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass

Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass.

Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach
A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds;

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams,
To taste the luxury of sunny beams

Temper'd with coolness. How they ever wrestle
With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle
Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand.
If you but scantily hold out the hand,
That very instant not one will remain ;

But turn your eye, and they are there again,

The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses,
And cool themselves among the em'rald tresses;

The while they cool themselves, they freshness give,
And moisture, that the bowery green may live :

So keeping up an interchange of favours,
Like good men in the truth of their behaviours.
Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
From low hung branches; little space they stop;
But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:

85

90

(61-80) Clarke says Keats told him this passage was the recollection of the friends' "having frequently loitered over the rail of a foot-bridge that spanned a little brook in the last field upon entering Edmonton." Keats, he says, "thought the picture correct, and acknowledged to a partiality for it." Lord Houghton prints the following alternative reading of the passage beginning with line 61:

'Linger awhile among some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet's daisied banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:
That will be found as soft as ringdoves' cooings.
The inward ear will hear her and be blest,
And tingle with a joy too light for rest."