the pavement where thou rotted'st half.'9?
'Are there not thousands in the world,' said I,
155 Encourag'd by the sooth1 voice of the shade, 'Who love their fellows even to the death; Who feel the giant agony of the world; And more, like slaves to poor humanity, Labour for mortal good? I sure should see
160 Other men here: but I am here alone.' 'They whom thou spak'st of are no vision'ries,' Rejoin'd that voice?'They are no dreamers weak, They seek no wonder but the human face; No music but a happy-noted voice?
165 They come not here, they have no thought to come? And thou art here, for thou art less than they. What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe, To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing; A fever of thyself?think of the earth;
170 What bliss even in hope is there0 for thee? on Earth What haven? Every creature hath its home; Every sole man hath days of joy and pain, Whether his labours be sublime or low? The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct: 175 Only the dreamer venoms all his days, Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve. Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shar'd, Such things as thou art are admitted oft Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile, iHo And suffer'd in? these temples; for that cause allowed to enter Thou standest safe beneath this statue's knees.' 'That I am favored for unworthiness, By such propitious parley medicin'd In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,
its accoutcrments, Keats deliberately mingles blindness, for a celestial light that might 'Shine Hebrew, Christian, and pagan elements to repre-inward': 'Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from sent the poet's passage through the stage repre-thence / Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell sented by all religions, wrhich are 'dreams' made / Of things invisible to mortal sight' (Paradise Lost into the creed for 'a sect' (lines 1?1 8). 3.52- 54).
7. I.e., you have postponed the time when you will 9. I.e., where you halfway rotted. be judged. 1. Soothing, also truth-telling. 8. Cf. Milton's plea, following his account of his
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93 2 / JOHN KEATS
185 Aye, and could weep for love of such award.' So answer'd I, continuing, 'If it please, Majestic shadow, tell me: sure not all2 Those melodies sung into the world's ear Are useless: sure a poet is a sage;
190 A humanist, physician to all men. That I am none I feel, as vultures feel They are no birds when eagles are abroad. What am I then? Thou spakest of my tribe: What tribe?'?The tall shade veil'd in drooping white
195 Then spake, so much more earnest, that the breath Mov'd the thin linen folds that drooping hung About a golden censer from the hand Pendent.?'Art thou not of the dreamer tribe? The poet and the dreamer are distinct,
200 Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes. The one pours out a balm upon the world, The other vexes it.' Then shouted I Spite of myself, and with a Pythia's spleen,3 'Apollo! faded, far flown Apollo!
205 Where is thy misty pestilence4 to creep Into the dwellings, through the door crannies, Of all mock lyrists, large self worshipers, And careless hectorers in proud bad verse.5 Though I breathe death with them it will be life
210 To see them sprawl before me into graves.6 Majestic shadow, tell me where I am: Whose altar this; for whom this incense curls: What image this, whose face I cannot see, For the broad marble knees; and who thou art,
215 Of accent feminine, so courteous.' Then the tall shade in drooping linens veil'd Spake out, so much more earnest, that her breath Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung About a golden censer from her hand
220 Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed Long treasured tears. 'This temple sad and lone Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war Foughten long since by giant hierarchy
2. Keats's friend Richard Woodhouse, whose manuscript copy of the poem is our principal source of the text, crossed out lines 187?210with the marginal comment next to lines 197?99: 'K. seems to have intended to erase this & the next 21 lines.' Probably the basis for his opinion is the partial repetition of lines 187 and 194-98 in lines 211 and 216-20. 3. With the anger ('spleen') of the Pythia, the priestess who served at Delphi as the oracle of Apollo, the god of poetry. 4. Apollo was a sender of plagues, as well as the inspirer of prophecy and poetry. He was also the god of medicine. Keats's medical studies gave him special reason to be interested in this figure and the roles he combined. 5. This has been conjectured as referring to Byron, or else to several contemporaries, including Shelley and Wordsworth. But the poetic types, not individuals, are what matter to Keats's argument.
6. In lines 147?210 we find a series of progressive distinctions: (1) between humanitarians who feel for 'the miseries of the world' and people who are 'thoughtless' sleepers (lines 147-53); (2) within the class of humanitarians, between those who actively 'benefit . . . the great world' and the poets who are 'vision'ries' and 'dreamers' (lines 161? 69); (3) and within the class of poets, between those who are merely dreamers and those who are sages and healers (lines 187?202). As in the colloquy between Asia and Demogorgon (see Shelley's Prometheus Unbound 2.4.1-128, p. 802), the interchange here may be taken to represent, in dramatized form, a process of inner analysis and self-discovery on the part of the questing poet.
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THE FALL OF HYPERION / 93 1
Against rebellion: this old image here,
225 Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell, Is Saturn's;7 I, Moneta, left supreme Sole priestess of his desolation.'? I had no words to answer; for my tongue, Useless, could find about its roofed home
230 No syllable of a fit majesty To make rejoinder to Moneta's mourn. There was a silence while the altar's blaze Was fainting for sweet food: I look'd thereon And on the paved floor, where nigh were pil'd
235 Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps Of other crisped spice-wood?then again I look'd upon the altar and its horns Whiten'd with ashes, and its lang'rous flame, And then upon the offerings again;
240 And so by turns?till sad Moneta cried, 'The sacrifice is done, but not the less Will I be kind to thee for thy good will. My power, which to me is still a curse, Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes
245 Still swooning vivid through my globed brain With an electral changing misery Thou shalt with those dull mortal eyes behold, Free from all pain, if wonder pain thee not.' As near as an immortal's sphered words
