recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you will do immediately, write to Rome (poste restante)—if she is well and happy, put a mark thus +; if —.”

He reached Rome in a terrible state of exhaustion, worn out in body and soul. "When he first came here," his friend Severn wrote to England, on the 14th of February, 1821, "he purchased a copy of Alfieri,' but put it down at the second page, being much affected at the lines,

"Misera me! sollievo a me non resta,

Altro che il pianto ed il pianto è delitto l'

Now that I know so much of his grief, I do not wonder at it.

"Such a letter has come! I gave it to Keats, supposing it to be one of yours, but it proved sadly otherwise. The glance at that letter tore him to pieces; the effects were on him for many days. He did not read it-he could not-but requested me to place it in his coffin, together with a purse and a letter (unopened) of his sister's; since then he has told me not to place that letter in his coffin, only his sister's purse and letter and some hair. I however, persuaded him to think otherwise on this point."

"Feb. 27th. He is gone; he died with the most perfect ease-he seemed to go to sleep. On the twenty-third, about four, the approaches of death came on. 'Severn1-lift me up-I am dying-I shall die easy; don't be frightened-be firm, and thank God it has come.' I lifted him up in my arms. The phlegm seemed boiling in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sunk into death, so quiet, that I still thought he slept. I cannot say more now. I am broken down by four nights' watching, no sleep since, and my poor Keats gone. Three days since the body was opened; the lungs were completely gone. The doctors could not imagine how he had lived these two months. I followed his dear body to the grave on Monday, with many English."

"O Love, what is it in this world of ours

Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah why

With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers,
And made thy best interpreter a sigh?"

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,

When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,

So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright,

So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes,

And seeing it asleep, so fled away,

Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,

Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day,

1819.

But to that second circle of sad Hell,

Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell

Their sorrows,-pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

1819.

1820.

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and langourous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise;
Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve,

When the dusk holiday, or holinight,

Of fragrant-curtained love begins to weave

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;
But, as I've read Love's missal through to-day,
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray

I cry you mercy, pity, love, aye love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Unmasked, and, being seen, without a blot!
O let me have thee whole, all, all be mine!

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss; those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast;
Yourself, your soul, in pity give me all,

Withhold no atom's atom, or I die,

Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,

Life's purposes the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

ΤΟ

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 particoloured 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 wrecked, and live a wreckéd life;
That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour,

1819.

Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore,
Unowned 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-herbaged meads
Make lean and lank the starved ox while he feeds;
There bad 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 placed,

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!

JOHN CLARE.

1793

[“Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery." 1820.]

THE FIRST OF MAY.

A BALLAD.

FAIR blooms the rose upon the

Pretending to excel;

But who another rose has seen,

A different tale can tell.

green,

The morning smiles, the lark's begun
To welcome in the May:

Be cloudless, skies! look out, bright sun,
And haste my love away.

Though graceful round the maidens move,
That join the rural ball,

Soon shall they own my absent love
The rival of them all.

Go, wake your shepherdess, ye lambs!
And murmur her delay;

Chide her neglect, ye hoarser dams!
And call my love away.

Ye happy swains, with each a bride,
Were but the angel there,