Poems By William Bell Scott. Ballads, Studies from Nature, Sonnets, etc. Illustrated by Seventeen Etchings by the Author and L. Alma Tadema |
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TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS.
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 | Poems |  |
226
TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS.
(1832; revised.)
Thou dark-haired love-child, passed
Beyond the censer's odour and its dust,
Enamoured life,
So weak and yet so beautiful thou wert,
A reverential wish doth draw me thus
To rise to thee with measured words, when now
No one regards the poet's quivering string,
Since thine was hushed, who brought the myrtle here
From perfect Arcadie, whose verse
Young earth's freshness could rehearse.
Beyond the censer's odour and its dust,
Enamoured life,
So weak and yet so beautiful thou wert,
A reverential wish doth draw me thus
To rise to thee with measured words, when now
No one regards the poet's quivering string,
Since thine was hushed, who brought the myrtle here
From perfect Arcadie, whose verse
Young earth's freshness could rehearse.
Would that my tears were such
As in the wakening morning, from its leaves
That myrtle drops;
They might be worthy of thy sodded grave,
And sympathetic strengthening afford
To me, the mourner, bending over it,
Until the modern world is rolled away,
And all the splendours of the earlier time
Come down upon this leaden life of ours,
Through an unfolding sky,
Trembling in melody.
As in the wakening morning, from its leaves
That myrtle drops;
They might be worthy of thy sodded grave,
And sympathetic strengthening afford
To me, the mourner, bending over it,
Until the modern world is rolled away,
And all the splendours of the earlier time
Come down upon this leaden life of ours,
227
Trembling in melody.
A bier for earth's beloved!
Trees of Dodona's murmuring prophesies,
Scatter your leaves,
Strewn on the wintry bareness of the clay!
Let the sharp blanching eddies of the storm
Whirl them around the fossed wall where the dead,
The heretic dead, repose beside the tombs
Of ancient Romans, whose songs knew no blight
Of horrors mediæval, but were filled
With blooms and odours from the golden age:
Leaves of the cold last year
Cover his wintry bier.
Trees of Dodona's murmuring prophesies,
Scatter your leaves,
Strewn on the wintry bareness of the clay!
Let the sharp blanching eddies of the storm
Whirl them around the fossed wall where the dead,
The heretic dead, repose beside the tombs
Of ancient Romans, whose songs knew no blight
Of horrors mediæval, but were filled
With blooms and odours from the golden age:
Leaves of the cold last year
Cover his wintry bier.
Through the stripped pergola
The wind wails low, the hard soil blackens round
The dead flower-stem;
Sunk in wet weeds foul rottenness consumes
The pleasant things that were, as it must be
When the wheat falls, to be the bread for us;
And what the thresher leaves the night-wind sweeps:
After the curfew comes the silent hour:
Night reigns most dark before
Morn's breezes evermore.
The wind wails low, the hard soil blackens round
The dead flower-stem;
Sunk in wet weeds foul rottenness consumes
The pleasant things that were, as it must be
When the wheat falls, to be the bread for us;
And what the thresher leaves the night-wind sweeps:
After the curfew comes the silent hour:
Night reigns most dark before
Morn's breezes evermore.
No eventide was thine,
But like the young athlete from the bath,
For one brief hour,
You stood in the arena yet uncrowned,
Doubtful, although beyond all venturers strong;
Yes, strong to guide Hyperion's coursers round
The love-inscribèd zodiac of all time:
Thou youth, who in the gardens Athenine,
The noblest sage had leant upon with pride,
And called thee Musagætes, and thy lyre
Wreathed with the bay
Of the god of day.
But like the young athlete from the bath,
228
You stood in the arena yet uncrowned,
Doubtful, although beyond all venturers strong;
Yes, strong to guide Hyperion's coursers round
The love-inscribèd zodiac of all time:
Thou youth, who in the gardens Athenine,
The noblest sage had leant upon with pride,
And called thee Musagætes, and thy lyre
Wreathed with the bay
Of the god of day.
Not thus, not thus, indeed,
The over-crowded noisy stage received
Thy artful song;
But now the numerous voices have stilled down,
The stage is filled with actors hailing thee,
Hailing thee all too late: the winter's gone,
The dreadful tears are dried that wet the couch
Of thy farewell; the flowers, the fruits, have come;
The firmament of fame
Surrounds thee as with flame.
The over-crowded noisy stage received
Thy artful song;
But now the numerous voices have stilled down,
The stage is filled with actors hailing thee,
Hailing thee all too late: the winter's gone,
The dreadful tears are dried that wet the couch
Of thy farewell; the flowers, the fruits, have come;
The firmament of fame
Surrounds thee as with flame.
And why should we lament
The bitterness that marred not—nay, made pure
And free of fear?
We do not think the Beautiful was soiled,
The melody made less joyful to his ear;
And all else is gone past for evermore,
Or hangs about him like a thin dark veil,
Round the great lustrous limbs now defiled:
Suffering is a hymn,
Sung by the seraphim.
The bitterness that marred not—nay, made pure
And free of fear?
We do not think the Beautiful was soiled,
The melody made less joyful to his ear;
And all else is gone past for evermore,
229
Round the great lustrous limbs now defiled:
Suffering is a hymn,
Sung by the seraphim.
But not for songs like his,—
A mortal bound to earth by all the ties
Of subtlest sense,
And art unsatisfied, untamed, and force
Beyond that known by fettered schoolmen's brains:
Stronger than nimblest faun, behold him dance
Before the wine-fed leopards; hear him shout,
Io Iacche! the meridian sun
Browns his bare breast,—dead is he, or but gone
Into the shade to rest his cymballed hands?
Bacchus hath but shed
Slumber on his dark eyelid.
A mortal bound to earth by all the ties
Of subtlest sense,
And art unsatisfied, untamed, and force
Beyond that known by fettered schoolmen's brains:
Stronger than nimblest faun, behold him dance
Before the wine-fed leopards; hear him shout,
Io Iacche! the meridian sun
Browns his bare breast,—dead is he, or but gone
Into the shade to rest his cymballed hands?
Bacchus hath but shed
Slumber on his dark eyelid.
He sleeps, and dreams perchance,—
Still dreams, of kisses from the crescented
Queen of the stars;
Or of the dolphin-like round waves that froth
About the feet of Aphrodite, still
In wonder at herself born thus so fair;
Or of the dark heart of the forest shade,
Where Pan, retired from gods' or mortals' ken,
Utters his regular snore
Day and night evermore.
Still dreams, of kisses from the crescented
Queen of the stars;
Or of the dolphin-like round waves that froth
About the feet of Aphrodite, still
In wonder at herself born thus so fair;
Or of the dark heart of the forest shade,
Where Pan, retired from gods' or mortals' ken,
Utters his regular snore
Day and night evermore.
230
Fragrant, and cool, and calm:
Numberless gnats upon the mellowing air
Of sunset spin,
The old boughs reach up to the darkening heaven,
The nightingale makes paradise of pain,
And fills obscurity with loveliness:
Or, yet again—a green hill whence is seen
The far strand strewn with shells, and barred with waves;
Unearthly brightness breaks the clouds—the moon!
Endymion, sleepest thou?
Sleep no more now.
Numberless gnats upon the mellowing air
Of sunset spin,
The old boughs reach up to the darkening heaven,
The nightingale makes paradise of pain,
And fills obscurity with loveliness:
Or, yet again—a green hill whence is seen
The far strand strewn with shells, and barred with waves;
Unearthly brightness breaks the clouds—the moon!
Endymion, sleepest thou?
Sleep no more now.
I would some words inurn
Worthy the poet's name to whom I bow,
Yet none he needs;
Thou, vestal of the night's mid-watch, and thou,
The heralded of Hesperus, ye speak
Of that sweet name, and shall speak on for aye:
For such as love him with the love he gave,
His cenotaph is raised in Rome,
But the poet hath no tomb.
Worthy the poet's name to whom I bow,
Yet none he needs;
Thou, vestal of the night's mid-watch, and thou,
The heralded of Hesperus, ye speak
Of that sweet name, and shall speak on for aye:
For such as love him with the love he gave,
His cenotaph is raised in Rome,
But the poet hath no tomb.
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