The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/Lines: 'Unfelt, unheard, unseen'
LINES
First published, with the date 1817, in Life, Letters and Literary Remains. It is barely possible that this is the 'song' to which Keats refers in a letter to Benjamin Bailey, dated November 22, 1817, when he says: 'I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same idea of all our passions as of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty. In a word, you may know my favourite speculation by my first Book, and the little Song I sent in my last, which is a representation from the fancy of the probable mode of operating in these matters.'
Unfelt, unheard, unseen,
I 've left my little queen,
Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,
Who—who could tell how much
There is for madness—cruel, or complying?
Those faery lids how sleek!
Those lips how moist!—they speak,
In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds:
Into my fancy's ear
Melting a burden dear,
How 'Love doth know no fulness, and no bounds.'
True!—tender monitors!
I bend unto your laws:
This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,
I 'll feel my heaven anew,
For all the blushing of the hasty morn.