VERSES TO FANNY BRAWNE
Although these are not the only poems which owe their origin to Keats's consuming passion, they are grouped here because, apparently written in the same period, they stand as a painful witness to the ebbing tide of Keats's life.
SONNET
The date 1819 is appended to this sonnet in Life, Letters and Literary Remains. Mr. Forman connects it with a letter written to Fanny Brawne, October 11, 1819.
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,
Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rous waist!
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!
Vanish'd unseasonably at shut of eve,
When the dusk holiday—or holinight—
Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight:
But, as I 've read love's missal through to-day,
He 'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.
LINES TO FANNY
First published in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, and there dated October, 1819; their exact date seems to be indicated by a passage in a letter to Fanny Brawne, written October 13, 1819, intimating some work, and breaking out into: 'I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my mind for ever so short a time.'
What can I do to drive away
Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,
Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!
Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,
What can I do to kill it and be free
In my old liberty?
When every fair one that I saw was fair,
Enough to catch me in but half a snare,
Not keep me there:
When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things,
My muse had wings,
And ever ready was to take her course
Whither I bent her force,
Unintellectual, yet divine to me;—
Divine, I say!—What sea-bird o'er the sea
Is a philosopher the while he goes
Winging along where the great water throes?
How shall I do
To get anew
Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more
Above, above
The reach of fluttering Love,
And make him cower lowly while I soar?
Shall I gulp wine? No, that is vulgarism,
A heresy and schism,
Foisted into the canon law of love;—
No, wine is only sweet to happy men;
More dismal cares
Seize on me unawares,—
Where shall I learn to get my peace again?
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