The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/Sonnet: 'If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd'
SONNET
In copying his 'Ode to Psyche,' Keats added the flourish 'Here endethe ye Ode to Psyche,' and went on 'Incipit altera soneta.' 'I have been endeavouring,' he writes, 'to discover a better Sonnet Stanza than we have. The legitimate does not suit the language over well from the pouncing rhymes—the other kind appears too elegiac—and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect—I do not pretend to have succeeded—it will explain itself.' The sonnet was printed in Life, Letters and Literary Remains.
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet;
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay-wreath crown:
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.