The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/To My Brothers
TO MY BROTHERS
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 fresh-laid 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.