What's O'Clock/On Reading a Line Underscored by Keats
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ON READING A LINE UNDERSCORED BY KEATS
In a Copy of "Palmerin of England"
You marked it with light pencil upon a printed page,
And, as though your finger pointed along a sunny path for my eyes' better direction,
I see "a knight mounted on a mulberry courser and attired in green armour."
I think the sky is faintly blue, but with a Spring shining about it,
And the new grass scarcely fetlock high in the meads.
He rides, I believe, alongside an overflown river,
By a path soft and easy to his charger's feet.
My vision confuses you with the green-armoured knight:
So dight and caparisoned might you be in a land of Faery.
Thus, with denoting finger, you make of yourself an escutcheon to guide me to that in you which is its essence.
But for the rest,
The part which most persists and is remembered,
I only know I compass it in loving and neither have, nor need, a symbol.
And, as though your finger pointed along a sunny path for my eyes' better direction,
I see "a knight mounted on a mulberry courser and attired in green armour."
I think the sky is faintly blue, but with a Spring shining about it,
And the new grass scarcely fetlock high in the meads.
He rides, I believe, alongside an overflown river,
By a path soft and easy to his charger's feet.
My vision confuses you with the green-armoured knight:
So dight and caparisoned might you be in a land of Faery.
Thus, with denoting finger, you make of yourself an escutcheon to guide me to that in you which is its essence.
But for the rest,
The part which most persists and is remembered,
I only know I compass it in loving and neither have, nor need, a symbol.