John Keats

Sonnet I. To My Brother George

Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn;—the laurelled peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;— The ocean with its vastness, its blue green, Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears Must think on what will be, and what has been. E'en now, dear George, while this for you I write, Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping So scantly, that it seems her bridal night, And she her half-discovered revels keeping. But what, without the social thought of thee, Would be the wonders of the sky and sea? 'Among the late Joseph Severn's Keats relics were a few leaves torn from a small oblong pocket note-book, bearing pencilled sketches by Keats of rude figures &c. and what seem to be first drafts (in pencil also) of his sonnet and the two quatrains of the sonnet To My Brothers. The erasures are not such as to indicate any want of fluency. I have collated this draft with a careful transcript made by George Keats himself, and with another in Tom Keats's copy-book. This last does not vary from the printed text, and bears no date; but the other transcript, like that of the Epistle to George Keats, is subscribed "Margate, August, 1816. " In the draft, line 3 at first stood unfinished -- That trembled on the morning's eye and then -- That trembled in the eye of Morn and finally -- That hung on Morning's cheek -- the laurell'd Peers, which is the reading of George Keats's transcript. In line 4 we have That for Who in the transcript; while the draft reads That in the Paleing (altered to feathery) gold. In line 6 of the draft, Dangers stands cancelled in favour of Rocks. Line 8 in both draft and transcript is -- Must muse on what's to come and what has bee. In line 10 the draft reads silver for silken, and there is a cancelled line 11: -- Giving the world such snatches of delight, for which the reading of the text is substituted. The final couplet was originally -- The Sights have warmed me but without thy love, What Joy in Earth or Sea or Heaven above? This is cancelled in the draft in favour of the reading of the text. In line 13 the transcript has 'thoughts' for 'thought. ' Even the small beginning of lunar impersonation that we see in lines 10 to 12 has its interest in the mental history of one who was born to luxuriate through such a harvest of luscious thought and imagery as Endymion. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.