"For 'twas the morn. Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds. Rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of Nature's lives and wonders pulsed tenfold
To feel this sunrise and its glories old."
Here Apollo's _fire_ produces a _pyre_--a silvery pyre--of clouds,
_wherein_ a spirit might _win_ oblivion, and melt his essence _fine_;
and scented _eglantine_ gives sweets to the _sun_, and cold springs had
_run_ into the _grass_; and then the pulse of the _mass_ pulsed
_tenfold_ to feel the glories _old_ of the new-born day, &c.
'One example more:--
"Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings, such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain; be still the leaven
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth,
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth."
_Lodge, dodge--heaven, leaven--earth, birth_--such, in six words, is the
sum and substance of six lines.
'We come now to the author's taste in versification. He cannot indeed
write a sentence, but perhaps he may be able to spin a line. Let us see.
The following are specimens of his prosodial notions of our English
heroic metre:--
"Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite.
"So plenteously all weed-hidden roots.
"Of some strange history, potent to send.
"Before the deep intoxication.
"Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion.
"The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepared.
"Endymion, the cave is secreter
Than the isle of Delos. Echo hence shall stir
No sighs but sigh-warm kisses, or light noise
Of thy combing hand, the while it travelling cloys
And trembles through my labyrinthine hair."
'By this time our readers must be pretty well satisfied as to the
meaning of his sentences and the structure of his lines. We now present
them with some of the new words with which, in imitation of Mr. Leigh
Hunt, he adorns our language.
'We are told that turtles _passion_ their voices; that an arbour was
_nested_, and a lady's locks _gordianed_ up; and, to supply the place of
the nouns thus verbalized, Mr. Keats, with great fecundity, spawns new
ones, such as men-slugs and human _serpentry_, the _honey-feel_ of
bliss, wives prepare _needments_, and so forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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