John Keats

“ Often 'tis in such gentle temper found That scarcely will the very smallest shell Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell When last the winds of Heaven were unbound. O ye who have your eyeballs vext and tir'd Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea Or fed too much with cloying melody - Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood Until ye start as if the Sea Nymphs quired - April 18th
Will you have the goodness to do this? ”

“ I am continually running away from the subject - sure this cannot be exactly the case with a complex Mind - one that is imaginative and at the same time careful of its fruits - who would exist partly on Sensation partly on thought - to whom it is necessary that years should bring the philosophic Mind - such an one I consider your's and therefore it is necessary to your eternal Happiness that you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven, which I shall call the redigestion of our most ethereal Musings on Earth ”

“ In passing however I must say of one thing that has pressed upon me lately and encreased my Humility and capability of submission and that is this truth - Men of Genius are great as certain ethereal Chemicals operating on the Mass of neutral intellect - but they have not any individuality, any determined Character - I would call the top and head of those who have a proper self Men of Power. ”

“ I must in honesty however confess that I did not feel very sorry at the idea of the Women being a little profligate - The wind is in a sulky fit, and I feel that it would be no bad thing to be the favorite of some Fairy, who would give one the power of seeing how our Friends got on, at a Distance - I should like, of all Loves, a sketch of you and Tom and George in ink which Haydon will do if you tell him how I want them - From want of regular rest, I have been rather narvus - and the passage in Lear -"Do you not hear the sea?"- has maunted me intensely. ”

“ Do not they like this better than what they can read through before Mrs Williams comes down stairs? a Morning work at most. Besides a long Poem is a test of Invention which I take to be the Polar Star of Poetry, as Fancy is the Sails, and Imagination the Rudder. ”

“ The web of our Life is of mingled Yarn." ”

“ I find I cannot exist without Poetry - without eternal Poetry - half the day will not do - the whole of it - I began with a little, but habit has made me a Leviathan. ”

“ There's Hunt infatuated - there's Haydon's Picture in statu quo. There's Hunt walks up and down his painting room criticising every head most unmercifully. There's Horace Smith tired of Hunt. The web of our Life is of mingled Yarn." Haydon having removed entirely from Marlborough Street Crips must direct his Letter to Lisson Grove North - Paddington. Yesterday Morning while I was at Brown's in came Reynolds - he was pretty bobbish we had a plaeasant day - but he would walk home at night that cursed cold distance. ”

“ But do not sacrifice your health to Books do take it kindly and not so voraciously. I am certain if you are your own Physician your Stomach will resume its proper Strength and then what great Benefits will follow. ”

“ It keeps eternal Whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Glut twice ten thousand Caverns; ”

“ Dilke wherefore she does so distress me - Let me know how Jane has her health - the Weather is unfavorable for her.- Tell George and Tom to write.- I'll tell you what - on the 23rd was Shakespeare born - now if I should receive a letter from you and another from my Brothers on that day 'twould be a parlous good thing. ”