"O weep for Adonais! The quick dreams, The passion-winged ministers of thought, Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain; But droop there whence they sprung, and mourn their lot, Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them; A greater loss with one which was more weak, "Another Splendor on his mouth alit, That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath And as a dying meteor stains a wreath Of moonlight vapor, which the cold night clips, "All he had loved, and molded into thought, Form, shape, and hue, and odor, and sweet sound, Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, Afar the melancholy thunder moaned; Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay; And the wild-winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay." The tenderness Shelley shows for Keats in this beautiful elegiac poem, which reminds me of Spenser's lament for Sidney, is made more touching by the fact that when Shelley's poor disfigured body was found washed up on the After boat was probably run down by some larger vessel. several days of waiting-terrible days for Mrs. Shelley and Mrs. Williams-the bodies were found washed up, wavebeaten and almost fleshless, on the shore. What was left of the two bodies was burnt on a funeral pile built on the sandy shore, and their ashes were buried in the cemetery in Florence. Byron was foremost in this strange burial rite, aided by Capt. Trelawney,* who was a friend of both the dead. Thus, in the real opening of life, at the point where what was best in him seemed ready for fruition, Shelley died. Men of much less genius have gained a larger fame and held a higher place in the annals of literature. But, as he is one of the most poetic of poets, he will always be loved by those of his own guild; his thought will take deep root in the hearts of other poets, and serve for their inspiration. For himself, he died too young. The promise of his life was thwarted by his early death. Up to the time of his death he had been. restless and unsettled in spirit. The seething waves of thought in his brain should have had time to cool and settle into tranquillity. Dying at thirty, he had not reached the serene heights where the poet ought to dwell. If he had lived longer, I feel sure time would have ripened him into a grand maturity; would have taught him trust and patience, and brought him to a calm which in his brief life he had not not reached. TALK LVI. ON JOHN KEATS. ONE of Shelley's most touching and beautiful poems is his Adonais-The Lament for Keats. I wish it were not too long for me to quote it all; I can only give you here a few verses: *A very interesting sketch of Shelley and Byron-called Recollections of Shelley and Byron, has been published by Capt. Trelawney. ready a blood-vessel had broken in his lungs, and signs of consumption began to show itself, but only two years later he published another volume, containing Hyperion, Lamia Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other poems. Among the shorter lyrics was that most exquisite Ode to a Nightingale: "Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn." These were Keats' last works. His disease gained on him rapidly, and when only a little over twenty-five years, he died. But his life as a poet, was more rounded and complete than that of many older poets. I have not that feeling about his early death that I have for Shelley. Keats sang his songs and died, and they are so perfect in their way that we do not complain there are so few, nor feel that life could have added much to the richness of his genius. There are no signs of any conflicts in his spirit which needed to be outlived before he could write at his best, as in Shelley. His poetry is not a field on which ideas are at battle or theories are displayed. They are beautiful fancies, or old tales, woven into melodious, pictorial verses. His poetry is the most perfect of word-painting. One can almost see colors in the printed lines of his Endymion or Eve of St. Agnes. No poet could better use words whose sound fits the meaning; such words as lush, murmurous, and others, in which the poet speaks to the sense as well as the thought. No poet since Shakspeare was more an artist in the use of the adjective words which give vividness and color. For example-an "azure lidded sleep," the "poppied beach at Via Reggio, one pocket of his jacket had a volume of Keats in it, doubled back, as if when death clutched the frail boat, the reader had hastily thrust away his book, in the middle of some favorite line. Born 1795. John Keats' life is sad from first to last. He was born with the sensibility of a poet, which feels a hurt at every pore. He lost his mother, whom he loved most Died 1820. dearly, when a school boy; he was apprenticed to a surgeon at fifteen, and the boy who felt all sorts of fancies flowering in his mind and asking for expression, was kept for three years pounding drugs in a mortar and putting up his master's prescriptions. During this time he read the Fairy Queenthat treasure-house for younger poets-and spent his spare time in imitating the Spenserian stanza, or in writing verses after his own heart. When he was twenty-two he published his poem of Endymion, which the Reviews pounced upon with their usual savageness. The leading Reviews-the Quarterly and the Edinburgh, remind one in those days of the giant in Mother Goose's melodies. They seem to cry: "Fee! faw! fum! I smell the blood of a young poet. Be he alive or be he dead, In the street or in his bed, I must have some here in my can !" On which they went to work and cut him up, heart's blood, bones and all, in the pages of their magazines. In Keats' case, the process of cutting up was fatal. He could not bear such treatment, or like Wordsworth, despise it, in serene faith in his own power. It is generally believed that this severe criticism was one cause of his death. Nevertheless, in spite of the critics, Endymion was a great poem; a poem that in a short time the critics (who are generally very poor oracles till popular judgment comes to set them right) were obliged to pronounce great. Keats' disappointment at the way his poem was treated was bitter, but it did not destroy his power to work. Al ready a blood-vessel had broken in his lungs, and signs of consumption began to show itself, but only two years later he published another volume, containing Hyperion, Lamia Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other poems. Among the shorter lyrics was that most exquisite Ode to a Nightingale: "Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn." These were Keats' last works. His disease gained on him rapidly, and when only a little over twenty-five years, he died. But his life as a poet, was more rounded and complete than that of many older poets. I have not that feeling about his early death that I have for Shelley. Keats sang his songs and died, and they are so perfect in their way that we do not complain there are so few, nor feel that life could have added much to the richness of his genius. There are no signs of any conflicts in his spirit which needed to be outlived before he could write at his best, as in Shelley. His poetry is not a field on which ideas are at battle or theories are displayed. They are beautiful fancies, or old tales, woven into melodious, pictorial verses. His poetry is the most perfect of word-painting. One can almost see colors in the printed lines of his Endymion or Eve of St. Agnes. No poet could better use words whose sound fits the meaning; such words as lush, murmurous, and others, in which the poet speaks to the sense as well as the thought. No poet since Shakspeare was more an artist in the use of the adjective words which give vividness and color. For example-an "azure lidded sleep," the "poppied |