I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But suddenly the tears and funeral bells were hushed by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artillery, advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by echoes from the mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my ear earthwards to listen--"hush!--this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"--and then I listened more profoundly, and whispered as I raised my head--"or else, oh heavens! it is _victory_ that is final, victory that swallows up all strife." (_The English Mail-coach_.) {122} JOHN KEATS 1795-1821 THE USE OF POETRY I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this manner--Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy or distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it: until it becomes stale--But when will it do so? Never--When Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual passage serves him as a starting-post towards all "the two-and-thirty Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinder it, and a nap upon Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings--the prattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle-age a strength to beat them--a strain of music conducts to "an odd angle of the Isle," and when the leaves whisper it puts a girdle round the earth.--Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverence to their Writers--for perhaps the honours paid by Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the benefit done by great works to the "spirit and pulse of good" by their mere passive existence. Memory should not be called Knowledge--Many have original minds who do not think it--they are led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may, like the spider, spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel--the points of leaves and twigs on which {123} the spider begins her work are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul, and weave a tapestry empyrean--full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, of distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different and bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear impossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or three under these suppositions. It is however quite the contrary. Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together and the old man be led on his path and the child left thinking.