Now I swear at once That I am wise, that Pallas is a dunce-- Perhaps her love like mine is but unknown-- O I do think that I have been alone In chastity: yes, Pallas has been sighing, _While every eve saw me my hair uptying, With fingers cool as aspen leaves_. In like manner the unfortunate opening of Book III above cited leads on, as Mr de Selincourt has justly observed, to a passage in praise of the moon which is among the very finest and best sustained examples of Keats's power in nature-poetry. For quotation I will take not this but a second invocation to the moon which follows a little later, for the reason that in it the raptures and longings which the poet puts into the mouth of his hero are really in a large measure his own:-- What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move My heart so potently? When yet a child I oft have dry'd my tears when thou hast smil'd. Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went From eve to morn across the firmament. No apples would I gather from the tree, Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously: No tumbling water ever spake romance, But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance: No woods were green enough, no bower divine, Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine: In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take, Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake; And, in the summer tide of blossoming, No one but thee hath heard me blythly sing And mesh my dewy flowers all the night. No melody was like a passing spright If it went not to solemnize thy reign. Yes, in my boyhood every joy and pain By thee were fashioned in the self-same end; And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen; Thou wast the mountain-top--the sage's pen-- The poet's harp--the voice of friends--the sun; Thou wast the river--thou wast glory won; Thou wast my clarion's blast--thou wast my steed-- My goblet full of wine--my topmost deed:-- Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon! O what a wild and harmonized tune My spirit struck from all the beautiful! In the last two lines of the above Keats gives us the essential master key to his own poetic nature and being. The eight preceding, from 'As I grew in years' offer in their rhetorical form a curious parallel with a passage of similar purport in Drayton's _Endimion and Phoebe_:-- Be kind (quoth he) sweet Nymph unto thy lover, My soul's sole essence and my senses' mover, Life of my life, pure Image of my heart, Impression of Conceit, Invention, Art. My vital spirit receives his spirit from thee, Thou art that all which ruleth all in me, Thou art the sap and life whereby I live, Which powerful vigour doth receive and give. Thou nourishest the flame wherein I burn, The North whereto my heart's true touch doth turn.