Brother belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek:
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength regain,
Well may thy brow the placid glow retain
Of sweet content and thy pleas'd eye may speak
The conscious self applause, but should I seek
To utter what this heart can feel,—Ah! vain
Were the attempt! Yet kindest friends while o'er
My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness
The being whom your cares could e'en restore,
From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess
The feelings which these lips can ne'er express?
Feelings, deep fix'd in grateful memory's store.
On Oxford
The Gothic looks solemn,
The plain Doric column
Supports an old Bishop and Crozier;
The mouldering arch,
Shaded o'er by a larch,
Stands next door to Wilson the Hosier.
Vice,—that is, by turns,—
O'er pale faces mourns
The black tassell'd trencher and common hat;
The charity boy sings,
The Steeple-bell rings
And as for the Chancellor—dominat.
There are plenty of trees,
And plenty of ease,
And plenty of fat deer for Parsons;
And when it is venison,
Short is the benison,—
Then each on a leg or thigh fastens.
To a Cat
These verses were addressed by Keats to a cat belonging to Mrs. Reynolds of Little Britain, the mother of his friend John Hamilton Reynolds. Mrs. Reynolds gave the verses to her son-in-law, Tom Hood, who published them in his Comic Annual for 1830.
Cat! who has[t] pass'd thy grand clima[c]teric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd?—How many tit-bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears—but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me—and upraise
Thy gentle mew—and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick:
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists
For all the wheezy asthma,—and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off—and though the fists
Of many a maid has given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter'dst on glass-bottled wall.
