When the dusk holiday—or holinight
Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight:
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise—
But, as I've read love's missal through to-day,
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.
It is, of course, quite possible that another MS. of the poem was in the possession of Lord Houghton, and that he did not use the Woodhouse transcript in this instance; but the variation between the two versions is not, in my opinion, too great to be due to Lord Houghton alone. It must be remembered that the conception as to the duties of an editor were different in the middle of the last century from what they are to-day, and my examination of the MS. of 'The Fall of Hyperion' side by side with Lord Houghton's printed text has revealed discrepancies even more striking than these. But, in any case, the version which I have just printed is undoubtedly authentic, and I believe that many students of Keats will think it superior to the other.
Together with the Woodhouse transcript of 'The Fall of Hyperion, and other Poems,' Lord Crewe discovered a fragment of the autograph MS. of the 'Ode to Fanny,' which, apparently, was lost together with the transcript, and has never been collated since its publication in 1848. It consists of one sheet containing stanzas 2 and 3, one bottom half-sheet with stanza 5, and one sheet with stanzas 6 and 7. The paper is ordinary foolscap, and bears the water-mark Wilmott, 1818. The MS. not only preserves several rejected readings, but in some places enables us to correct the printed text; for it seems unlikely that Keats, who did not prepare the poem for publication, wrote another copy of it.
I print Lord Houghton's version, with notes upon the variations to be observed in the MS.
Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries,—
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright,
As when with ravish'd, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in soft amaze,
I gaze, I gaze!
There are no important variations in this stanza, though the punctuation is different. The note of interjection in line 1 is placed by Keats after love and not after Ah, and there is no comma after fears or joys. In l. 4 "A smile of such delight" is altered to "A smiling of delight," and then the of is cancelled as though to make room for a monosyllabic adjective; but this was not supplied, and so Lord Houghton was obliged to restore the first reading.
Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?
What stare outfaces now my silver moon?
Ah! keep that hand unravish'd at the least;
Let, let, the amorous burn—
But, pr'ythee, do not turn
The current of your heart from me so soon.
O! save, in charity,
The quickest pulse for me.
The MS. preserves a false start for the first line, "My temples with hot jealous pulses beat." In l. 6 heart is cancelled for thoughts.
Stanza 4 is wanting, and 5 shows no variations from the printed text. Lord Houghton prints 6 and 7 thus:—
I know it—and to know it is despair
To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny!
Whose heart goes flutt'ring for you every where,
Nor, when away you roam,
Dare keep its wretched home,
Love, love alone, his pains severe and many:
Then, loveliest! keep me free,
From torturing jealousy.
Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above
The poor, the fading, brief pride of an hour:
Let none profane my Holy See of love,
Or with a rude hand break
The sacramental cake:
Let none else touch the just new-budded flower
If not—may my eyes close,
Love! on their last repose.
Stanza 6 seems to have given Keats some trouble, for the following false starts are preserved:—
Knoll for a mercy on my lonely hours.
Cry your soft mercy for a. . . . . .
For "Fanny," "girl" was first written, but immediately cancelled. The last part of the stanza differs substantially from Lord Houghton's version. It runs thus:—
Dare keep its wretched home.
Love, Love alone has pains severe and many:
When loneliest keep me free
From torturing jealousy.
It will be agreed that the change in the punctuation at the end of l. 5 and the MS. reading in l. 6 of has for his much improve the sense. On the alteration of l. 7 it should be remarked that Keats's u's and n's are always much alike, as any one acquainted with his autograph MSS. can testify; but the W at the beginning of the line is unmistakable, and the absence of the note of interjection
