A desert fills our seeing's inward span;
Nurse of swart nations since the world began,
Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile
Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,
Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan?
O may dark fancies err! They surely do;
'T is ignorance that makes a barren waste
Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew
Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too,
And to the sea as happily dost haste.
TO SPENSER
Printed in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, and undated. Afterward, when Lord Houghton printed it in the Aldine edition of 1876, he noted that he had seen a transcript given by Keats to Mrs. Longmore, a sister of Reynolds, dated by the recipient, February 5, 1818. But Lord Houghton is confident that the sonnet was written much earlier.
Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English that might strive thine ear to please.
But Elfin Poet, 't is impossible
For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise like Phœbus with a golden quill
Fire-wing'd and make a morning in his mirth.
It is impossible to escape from toil
O' the sudden and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:
Be with me in the summer days, and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.
SONG
WRITTEN ON A BLANK PAGE IN BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER'S WORKS, BETWEEN 'CUPID'S REVENGE' AND 'THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN'
First published in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, and undated.
Spirit here that reignest!
Spirit here that painest!
Spirit here that burnest!
Spirit here that mournest!
Spirit, I bow
My forehead low,
Enshaded with thy pinions.
Spirit, I look
All passion-struck
Into thy pale dominions.
Spirit here that laughest!
Spirit here that quaffest!
Spirit here that dancest!
Noble soul that prancest!
Spirit, with thee
I join in the glee
A-nudging the elbow of Momus.
Spirit, I flush
With a Bacchanal blush
Just fresh from the Banquet of Comus.
FRAGMENT
Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryo atoms.
Published in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, without date.
Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
