Romantic

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-
No- yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell
Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening chest
Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear his tender-taken breath
And so live ever – or else swoon to death

*

You can depend upon the great Romantics poets if your mundane existence requires a touch of melodrama, gentle reader… not to suggest it does, of course!

Just the other day, one perused Mr Keats’s letters to Mr Shelley (copies, alas!) and it brought a smile to read these immortal lines:

“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… 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 bed-posts.”

In his letter, Mr Keats went on to consider ‘Poetry, and dramatic effect’, which even a reader of your limited abilities will appreciate has been a pervasive concern throughout the creation of my humble bloguette. He wrote:

“A modern work it is said must have a purpose, which may be the God – an artist must serve Mammon – he must have self concentration;, selfishness perhaps. You I 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. (Sounds a tad risqué, does it not? Loading every rift of your subject with ore… whatever can Mr Keats mean?) 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… My Imagination is a Monastery and I am its Monk- you must explain my metaphysics to yourself. I am in expectation of Prometheus every day.”

But I digress, gentle reader… or do I?