The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/Spenserian Stanzas on Charles Armitage Brown
Spenserian Stanzas on Charles Armitage Brown
Inclosed in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, April 16 or 17, 1819:' Brown this morning is writing some Spenserian stanzas against Mrs., Miss Brawne and me; so I shall amuse myself with him a little: in the manner of Spenser.'
He is to weet a melancholy Carle:
Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,
As hath the seeded thistle when in parle
It holds the Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair
Its light balloons into the summer air;
There to his beard had not begun to bloom,
No brush had touch'd his chin, or razor sheer;
No care had touched his cheek with mortal doom,
But new he was, and bright, as scarf from Persian loom.
Ne cared he for wine, or half-and-half;
Ne cared he for fish, or flesh, or fowl;
And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;
He 's deigned the swineherd at the wassail bowl;
Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl;
Ne with sly Lemans in the scorner's chair;
But after water-brooks this Pilgrim's soul
Panted, and all his food was woodland air;
Though he would oft-times feast on gilliflowers rare.
The slang of cities in no wise he knew;
Tipping the wink to him was heathen Greek;
He sipp'd no 'olden Tom,' or 'ruin blue,'
Or Nautz, or cherry-brandy, drunk full meek
By many a Damsel hoarse, and rouge of cheek;
Nor did he know each aged Watchman's beat,
Nor in obscured purlieus would he seek
For curled Jewesses, with ankles neat,
Who, as they walk abroad, make tinkling with their feet.