John Keats

Lines To Fanny

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? To banish thoughts of that most hateful land, Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked strand Where they were wreck'd and live a wrecked life; That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore, Unown'd of any weedy-haired gods; Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods, Iced in the great lakes, to afflict mankind; Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind, Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh herbag'd meads Make lean and lank the starv'd ox while he feeds; There flowers have no scent, birds no sweet song, And great unerring Nature once seems wrong. O, for some sunny spell To dissipate the shadows of this hell! Say they are gone,-- with the new dawning light Steps forth my lady bright! O, let me once more rest My soul upon that dazzling breast! Let once again these aching arms be plac'd, The tender gaolers of thy waist! And let me feel that warm breath here and there To spread a rapture in my very hair,-- O, the sweetness of the pain! Give me those lips again! Enough! Enough! it is enough for me To dream of thee! 'These lines, first given in the Life, Letters &c. , were there dated October 1819; and I should be disposed to assign them to the 12th of that month, the day before that on which Keats posted a letter at Westminster to Miss Brawne, saying 'inter alia' that he has set himself to copy some verses out fair, and adding "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. " The text appears to me to need revision in certain points; but I know of no authority for change. Thus, in line 3, the word 'and' or 'but' has probably dropped out after 'Aye. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.