Appendix A Selection of Poems written to or about John Keats: 1821-1994 CONTENTS OF APPEND LX The following poems are present in rough chronological order of publica­ tion or composition, beginning with Clare (1821). 'To the Memory of John Keats,' John Clare. 167 'ln Memory of Keats,' S. Laman Blanchard. 167 'Written in Keats's 'Endymion',' Thomas Hood. 168 'On Keats,' Christina Rossetti. 168 'From Aurora Leigh,' Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 169 'Popularity,' Robert Browning. 170 'To the Spirit of Keats,' james Russell Lowell. 171 'On Keats's Grave,' Alice Meynell. 172 ' Keats,' Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 174 'The Grave of Keats,' Oscar Wilde. 174 'John Keats,' Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 175 'Post Mortem,' A. C. Swinburne. 175 'Keats' Critics,' Perry Marshall. 177 'To Keats,' Lord Dunsany. 177 'To a Life Mask of Keats,' Anne Elizabeth Wilson. 178 'On the Drawing Depicting John Keats in Death,' Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. J. B. Leishman). 178 'To Keats,' Louise Morgan Sill. 179 'A Brown Aesthete Speaks,' Mae V. Cowdery. 180 'ln an Auction Room,' Christopher Morley. 181 'In Remembrance of the Ode to a Nightingale,' Katherine Shepard Hayden. 182 'On Reading Keats in War Time,' Karl Shapiro. From V-Letter and Other Poems. New York: Reyna! & Hitchcock, 1944. 182 'A Room in Rome,' Karl Shapiro. New Rochelle, NY: James L. Weil, 1987. 183 'Posthumous Keats,' Stanley Plumly. From Summer Celestin/. New York: Ecco Press, 1983. 184 166 Appendix: A Selection of Poems 167 'Scirocco,' Jorie Graham. From Erosion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. 185 'John Keats at the Low Wood Hotel Disco, Windermere,' Peter Laver. From Offcomers. Durham: Pig Press, 1985. 187 'Voyages,' Amy Clampitt. What the Light was Like. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. 188 'A Kumquat for John Keats,' Tony Harrison. From Selected Poems. New York: Random House, 1987. 190 'There,' Mark Halliday. In Poetry, CLX (April1992): 33. 192 'Oatmeal,' Galway Kinnell. From Wizen One has Lived a Long Time Alone. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. 193 'Pegasus Jockey,' 'Endymion,' 'A Pocket Apollo,' 'It Is Getting Late,' Tom Clark. From Junkets 011 a Sad Planet. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1994. 194 'The Ore, The Fire, The Fabulous Heft,' Reg Saner, unpublished. 197 TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS The world, its hopes, and fears, have pass'd away; No more its trifling thou shalt feel or see; Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day, While these left buds thy monument shall be. When Rancour's aims have past in naught away Enlarging specks discern'd in more than thee, And beauties 'minishing which few display­ When these are past, true child of Poesy, Thou shalt survive. Ah, while a being dwells, With soul, in nature's joys, to warm like thine, With eye to view her fascinating spells, And dream entranced o'er each form divine, Thy worth, Enthusiast, shall be cherish' d here, Thy name with him shall linger, and be dear. John Clare IN MEMORY OF KEATS Mute minstrel of the Eve, pale, mystical When one by one comes forth the pensive train Of things not born for worldly strife and pain, 168 Appe11dix: A Selectio11 of Poems That cannot fade, though doomed perchance to fall; Fond Cherisher of passions, fancies, all Whose essence fiUs a poet's flower-like home­ Tsaw but now, within your distant dome, A cloud that cast its transitory pall Across the quivering light: and I did think That moment on the cold and shadowing shame With which thy starry spirit hath been crowned. How vain their torturings were! for thou didst sink With the first stone cast at thy martyred fame; How like the snow that's ruined by a sound! 1823 S. Laman Blanchard WRITTEN IN KEATS'S 'ENDYMION' l saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains, And he but a hushed name, that Silence keeps ln dear remembrance,- lonely, and forlorn, Singing it to herself until she weeps Tears that perchance still glisten i:n the mom;­ And as l mused, in dull imaginings, There came a flash of garments, and l knew The awful Muse by her harmonious wings Charming the air to music as she flew­ Anon there rose an echo through the vale, Gave back Endymion in a dream-like tale. Thomas Hood ON KEATS A garden in a garden: a green spot Where all is green: most fitting slumber-place For the strong man grown weary of a race Soon over. Unto him a goodly lot Appendix: A Selection of Poems 169 Hath fallen in fertile ground; there thorns are not, But his own daisies; silence, full of grace, Surely hath shed a quiet on his face; His earth is but sweet leaves that fall and rot. What was his record of himself, ere he Went from us? 'Here lies one whose name was writ In water.' While the chilly shadows flit Of sweet St. Agnes' Eve, while basil springs­ His name, in every humble heart that sings, Shall be a fountain of love, verily. 18 January 1849 (Eve of St. Agnes) Christina Rossetti FROM AURORA LEIGH By Keats's soul, the man who never stepped In gradual progress like another man, But, turning grandly on his central self, Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years And died, not young, (the life of a long life Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear Upon the world's cold cheek to make it burn For ever;) by that strong excepted soul, l count it strange and hard to understand That nearly all young poets should write old, That Pope was sexagenary at sixteen, And beardless Byron academical, And so with others. Tt may be perhaps Such have not settled long and deep enough ln trance, to attain to clairvoyance,-and still The memory mixes with the vision, spoils, And works it turbid. Or perhaps, again, In order to discover the Muse-Sphinx, The melancholy desert must sweep round, Behind you as before.- For me, I wrote False poems, like the rest, and thought them true Because myself was true in writing them. I peradventure have writ true ones since With less complacence. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 170 Appendix: A Selection of Poems POPULARITY Stand still, true poet that you are! I know you; let me try and draw you. Some night you'll fail us: when afar You rise, remember one man saw you, Knew you, and named a star! My star, God's glow-worm' Why extend That loving hand of his which leads you, Yet locks you safe from end to end Of this dark world, unless he needs you, Just saves your light to spend? His clenched hand shall unclose at last, I know, and let out all the beau tv: My poet holds the future fast, ~ Accepts the coming ages' duty, Their present for this past. That day, the earth's feast-master's brow Shall clear, to God the chalice raising; 'Others give best at first, but thou Forever set'st our table praising, Keep'st the good wine 'til now!' Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand, With few or none to watch and wonder: I'll say- a fisher, on the sand By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, A netful, brought to land, Who has not heard how Tyrian shells Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes Whereof one drop worked miracles, And colored like Astarte's eyes Raw silk the merchant sells? And each bystander of them all Could criticise, and quote tradition How depths of blue sublimed some pall -To get which, pricked a king's ambition; Worth sceptre, crown and ball. Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh, The sea has only just o'er whispered! Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh, As if they still the water's lisp heard Through foam the rock-weeds thresh. Appendix: A Selection of Poems 171 Enough to furnish Solomon Such hangings for his cedar-house, That, when gold-robed he took the throne In that abyss of blue, the Spouse Might swear his presence shone Most like the centre-spike of gold Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb What time, with ardors manifold, The bee goes singing to her groom, Drunken and overbold. Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof! Till cunning come to pound and squeeze And clarify,- refine to proof The liquor filtered by degrees, While the world stands aloof. And there's the extract, flasked and fine, And priced and salable at last' And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine To paint the future from the past, Put blue into their line. Hobbs hints blue,- straight he turtle eats: Nobbs prints blue,- claret crowns his cup: Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,­ Both gorge. Who fished the murex up? What porridge had John Keats? Robert Browning TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom: Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom: Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops, Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully, Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might, 172 Appendix: A Selectio11 of Poems Serene and pure, like gushing joy of Light, Shall tTack the eternal chords of Destiny, After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops.