Martin are gone I am at liberty. Brown to my sorrow confirms the account you give of your ill health. You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour for what is in the world? I say you cannot conceive; it is impossible you should look with such eyes upon me as I have upon you: it cannot be. Forgive me if I wander a little this evening, for I have been all day employ'd in a very abstr[a]ct Poem1 and I am in deep love with you?two things which must excuse me. I have, believe me, not been an age in letting you take possession of me; the very first week I knew you I wrote myself your vassal; but burnt the Letter as the very next time I saw you I thought you manifested some dislike to me. If you should ever feel for Man at the first sight what I did for you, I am lost. Yet I should not quarrel with you, but hate myself if such a thing were to happen?only I should burst if the thing were not as fine
4. The deity who creates and preserves the world, religion of ancient Persia. in Hindu belief. Oromanes (Ahriman) was the 5. I.e., experiences by which the human heart is principle of evil, locked in a persisting struggle with put to the test. Ormazd, the principle of good, in the Zoroastrian 1. Probably The Fall of Hyperion.
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LETTERS / 953 1
as a Man as you are as a Woman. Perhaps I am too vehement, then fancy me on my knees, especially when I mention a part of you Letter which hurt me; you say speaking of Mr. Severn2 'but you must be satisfied in knowing that I admired you much more than your friend.' My dear love, I cannot believe there ever was or ever could be any thing to admire in me especially as far as sight goes?I cannot be admired, I am not a thing to be admired. You are, I love you; all I can bring you is a swooning admiration of your Beauty. I hold that place among Men which snub- nos'd brunettes with meeting eyebrows do among women?they are trash to me?unless I should find one among them with a fire in her heart like the one that burns in mine, You absorb me in spite of myself?you alone: for I look not forward with any pleasure to what is call'd being settled in the world; I tremble at domestic cares?yet for you 1 would meet them, though if it would leave you the happier I would rather die than do so. I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute. I hate the world: it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and would I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it. From no others would I take it. I am indeed astonish'd to find myself so careless of all cha[r]ms but yours?remembring as I do the time when even a bit of rib- band was a matter of interest with me. What softer words can I find for you after this?what it is I will not read. Nor will I say more here, but in a Postscript answer any thing else you may have mentioned in your Letter in so many words?for I am distracted with a thousand thoughts. I will imagine you Venus
tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Hethen.3
Your's ever, fair Star,
John Keats.
To Percy Bysshe Shelley1
[LOAD EVERY RIFT WITH ORE]
[August 16, 1820]
My dear Shelley,
I am very much gratified that you, in a foreign country, and with a mind almost over occupied, should write to me in the strain of the Letter beside me. If I do not take advantage of your invitation it will be prevented by a circumstance I have very much at heart to prophesy2?There is no doubt that an english winter would put an end to me, and do so in a lingering hateful manner, therefore I must either voyage or journey to Italy as a soldier marches up to a battery. My nerves at present are the worst part of me, yet they feel soothed when I think that come what extreme may, I shall not be destined to remain in one spot long enough to take a hatred of any four particular bedposts. I am glad you take any pleasure in my poor Poem;3?which I would
2. Joseph Severn, who later looked after Keats in in Pisa. Rome during his final illness. 2. His own death. 3. See Keats's sonnet 'Bright star' (p. 898) for 3. Keats's Endymion, Shelley had written, con- parallels to this and other remarks in the present tains treasures, 'though treasures poured forth letter. with indistinct profusion.' Keats here responds 1. Written in reply to a letter urging Keats (who with advice in kind. was ill) to spend the winter with the Shelleys
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95 4 / JOHN KEATS
willingly take the trouble to unwrite, if possible, did I care so much as I have done about Reputation. 1 received a copy of the Cenci,4 as from yourself from Hunt. There is only one part of it 1 am judge of; the Poetry, and dramatic effect, which by many spirits now a days is considered the mammon. A modern work it is said must have a purpose,5 which may be the God?a n artist must serve Mammon?he must have 'self concentration' selfishness perhaps. You 1 am sure will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity and be more of an artist, and 'load every rift''' of your subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furl'd for six Months together. And is not this extraordinary talk for the writer of Endymion? whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards?I am pick'd up and sorted to a pip.7 My Imagination is a Monastry and I am its Monk?you must explain my metap'8 to yourself. I am in expectation of Prometheus1' every day. Could I have my own wish for its interest effected you would have it still in manuscript?or be but now putting an end to the second act. I remember you advising me not to publish my first-blights, on Hampstead heath?1 am returning advice upon your hands. Most of the Poems in the volume I send you' have been written above two years, and would never have been publish'd but from a hope of gain; so you see I am inclined enough to take your advice now. I must exp[r]ess once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my sincere thanks and respects for M' Shelley. In the hope of soon seeing you I remain
most sincerely yours,
John Keats?
To Charles Brown1
[KEATS'S LAST LETTER]
Rome. 30 November 1820.
My dear Brown,
'Tis the most difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter. My stomach continues so bad, that I feel it worse on opening any book,?yet 1 am much better than I was in Quarantine.2 Then I am afraid to encounter the proing and conning of any thing interesting to me in England. I have an habitual feeling of my real life having past, and that I am leading a posthumous existence. God knows how it would have been?but it appears to
