John Keats

Imitation Of Spenser

Now Morning from her orient chamber came, And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill; Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame, Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill; Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill, And after parting beds of simple flowers, By many streams a little lake did fill, Which round its marge reflected woven bowers, And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers. There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below; Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow: There saw the swan his neck of arched snow, And oar'd himself along with majesty; Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony, And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously. Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle That in that fairest lake had placed been, I could e'en Dido of her grief beguile; Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen: For sure so fair a place was never seen, Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye: It seem'd an emerald in the silver sheen Of the bright waters; or as when on high, Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the cœrulean sky. And all around it dipp'd luxuriously Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide, Which, as it were in gentle amity, Rippled delighted up the flowery side; As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried, Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem! Haply it was the workings of its pride, In strife to throw upon the shore a gem Outviewing all the buds in Flora's diadem. 'The copy of these stanzas in Tom Keats's copy-book has a reading in line 12 which ought perhas to supersede the printed text of 1817, namely, 'golden scalès light. ' It seems highly likely that Keats really meant to carry his archaism to the extent of making scales a dissyllable, especially as the metre is thus corrected. Lord Houghton states on the authority of the notes of Charles Armitage Brown, given to his lordship in 1832, that this is the earliest known composition of Keats, and was written while he was living at Edmonton. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.