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, I count it strange, and hard to understand, That nearly all young poets should write old; That Pope was sexagenarian at sixteen, And beardless Byron academical, And so with others. It may be, perhaps, Such have not settled long and deep enough In 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. But I could not hide My quickening inner life from those at watch. They saw a light at a window now and then, They had not set there. Who had set it there? My father’s sister started when she caught My soul agaze in my eyes. She could not say I had no business with a sort of soul, But plainly she objected,—and demurred, That souls were dangerous things to carry straight Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world. She said sometimes, ‘Aurora, have you done Your task this morning?—have you read that book? And are you ready for the crochet here?’— As if she said, ‘I know there’s something wrong; I know I have not ground you down enough To flatten and bake you to a wholesome crust For household uses and proprieties, Before the rain has got into my barn And set the grains a-sprouting. What, you’re green With out-door impudence? you almost grow?’ To which I answered, ‘Would she hear my task, And verify my abstract of the book? And should I sit down to the crochet work? Was such her pleasure?’ ... Then I sate and teased The patient needle till it spilt the thread, Which oozed off from it in meandering lace From hour to hour. I was not, therefore, sad; My soul was singing at a work apart Behind the wall of sense, as safe from harm As sings the lark when sucked up out of sight, In vortices of glory and blue air.