Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-FameColvin, Sidney
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Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-Fame
Colvin, Sidney
Keats, John, 1795-1821; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
On another day he recurs to the mood of half real half mock impatience
against those who rub the bloom off things of beauty by over-commenting
and over-interpreting them, a mood natural to a spirit dwelling so
habitually and intuitively at the heart of beauty as his:--
It has as yet been a Mystery to me how and where Wordsworth went. I
can't help thinking he has returned to his Shell--with his beautiful
Wife and his enchanting Sister. It is a great Pity that People should
by associating themselves with the finest things, spoil them. Hunt has
damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian tales. Wordsworth
has damned the lakes. Milman has damned the old drama--West has damned
wholesale. Peacock has damned satire--Ollier has damn'd Music--Hazlitt
has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged; how durst the Man? he
is your only good damner, and if ever I am damn'd--damn me if I
shouldn't like him to damn me.
Once, writing to Reynolds, he resumes his habit of a year and a half
earlier, and casts his fancies and reflections into rime. Beginning
playfully, he tells of an odd jumble of incongruous images that had
crossed his brain, a kind of experience expressed by him elsewhere in
various strains of verse, _e.g._ the finished poem _Fancy_ and the
careless lines beginning 'Welcome Joy, and welcome Sorrow.' He supposes
that some people are not subject to such freaks of the mind's eye, but
have it consistently haunted by fine things such as he next proceeds to
conjure up from memory,--
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,--
The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife
Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,
The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows;
A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,
Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff;
The mariners join hymn with those on land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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