"Ah that's perfect! Bravo Keats!" And then he went on in a dilatation on the dumbness of Nature during the season's suspension and torpidity.' The affectionate enthusiasm of the younger and the older man (himself, be it remembered, little over thirty) for one another's company and verses sometimes took forms which to the mind of the younger and wiser of the two soon came to seem ridiculous. One day in early spring (1817) the whim seized them over their wine to crown themselves 'after the manner of the elder bards.' Keats crowned Hunt with a wreath of ivy, Hunt crowned Keats with a wreath of laurel, and each while sitting so adorned wrote a pair of sonnets expressive of his feelings. While they were in the act of composition, it seems, three lady callers came in--conceivably the three Misses Reynolds, of whom we shall hear more anon, Jane, afterwards Mrs Thomas Hood, Marianne, and their young sister Charlotte. When visitors were announced Hunt took off his wreath and suggested that Keats should do the same: he, however, 'in his enthusiastic way, declared he would not take off his crown for any human being,' and accordingly wore it as long as the visit lasted.[9] Here are Hunt's pair of sonnets, which are about as good as any he ever wrote, and which he not long afterwards printed:-- A crown of ivy! I submit my head To the young hand that gives it,--young, 'tis true, But with a right, for 'tis a poet's too. How pleasant the leaves feel! and how they spread With their broad angles, like a nodding shed Over both eyes! and how complete and new, As on my hand I lean, to feel them strew My sense with freshness,--Fancy's rustling bed! Tress-tossing girls, with smell of flowers and grapes Come dancing by, and downward piping cheeks, And up-thrown cymbals, and Silenus old Lumpishly borne, and many trampling shapes,-- And lastly, with his bright eyes on her bent, Bacchus,--whose bride has of his hand fast hold. It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind, Thus to be topped with leaves;--to have a sense Of honour-shaded thought,--an influence As from great Nature's fingers, and be twined With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind, As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence A head that bows to her benevolence, Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind. 'Tis what's within us crowned. And kind and great Are all the conquering wishes it inspires,-- Love of things lasting, love of the tall woods, Love of love's self, and ardour for a state Of natural good befitting such desires, Towns without gain, and haunted solitudes. Keats had the good sense not to print his efforts of the day; they are of slight account poetically, but have a real biographical interest:-- ON RECEIVING A LAUREL CROWN FROM LEIGH HUNT