With him,' said I, 'will take a pleasant charm;
It cannot be that ought will work him harm.'130
These thoughts now come o'er me with all their might:—
Again I shake your hand,—friend Charles, good night.
TO MY BROTHERS
Though the poem is thus headed in the 1817 volume, where it is dated November 18, 1816, it might as properly have the heading given it in Tom Keats's copybook: 'Written to his Brother Tom on his Birthday,' with the same date.
Small, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fix'd, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day, Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly:
Many such eves of gently whisp'ring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world's true joys,—ere the great Voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.
ADDRESSED TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON
The first of these two sonnets was sent by Keats with this brief note: 'November 20, 1816. My dear Sir—Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear sending you the following.' In his prompt acknowledgment Haydon suggested the omission of the last four words in the penultimate line, and proposed sending the sonnet to Wordsworth. Keats replied on the same day as his first note: 'Your letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and shall be kept by me as a stimulus to exertion—I begin to fix my eye upon one horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with yours in regard to the Ellipsis, and I glory in it. The Idea of your sending it to Wordsworth put me out of breath. You know with what Reverence I would send my Well-wishes to him.' The presentation copy of the 1817 volume bears the inscription 'To W. Wordsworth with the Author's sincere Reverence.' Both sonnets were printed, but in the reverse order in the 1817 volume, and the ellipsis was preserved.
I
Great spirits now on earth are sojourning;
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:
And lo!—whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings in the human mart?
Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.
II
Highmindedness, a jealousy for good,
A loving-kindness for the great man's fame,
Dwells here and there with people of no name,
In noisome alley, and in pathless wood:
And where we think the truth least understood,
Oft may be found a 'singleness of aim,'
That ought to frighten into hooded shame
A money-mong'ring, pitiable brood.
How glorious this affection for the cause
