May Byron

“ About eight o'clock one morning in early summer, a young man may be seen sauntering to and fro in the garden of Wentworth Place, Hampstead. Wentworth Place consists of two houses only; in the first, John Keats is established along with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. The second is inhabited by a Mrs. Brawne and her family. They are wooden houses, with festooning draperies of foliage: and the clean countrified air of Hampstead comes with sweet freshness through the gardens, and fills the young man with ecstatic delight. ”

“ A man whose whole business in life is the creation of the best work, who "never wrote a line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought," who believes that after his death he will be among the English poets, and that if he only has time now, he will make himself remembered—that such a one should be merely the butt and laughing-stock of his readers! It is an unendurable position. Not that Keats attaches undue importance to popular applause. ”

“ The man who is so soon to "feel the daisies growing over him," takes one of his intensest pleasures in watching the growth of flowers; and now, as an exquisite music, "notes that pierce and pierce," descends through the young green oak-leaves, the poet seizes this golden moment of the May world and transmutes it into song. ”

“ John Keats cannot stay indoors this fine May morning, "fitting himself for verses fit to live," when the girl who is to him the incarnation of all poetry is visible in the next-door garden. He throws down his pen and hurries out to join her.
Contemporary portraits of Fanny Brawne have not succeeded in representing her as beautiful: and at first sight Keats has complained, that, although she "manages to make her hair look well," she "wants sentiment in every feature." ”

“ The lovers' quarrel is over for the nonce. Visitors begin to drop in for the evening; there is music and singing in Brown's little drawing room. Keats is very fond of music, and can himself, though possessing hardly any voice, "produce a pleasing musical effect." He will sit and listen for hours to a sympathetic performer: but his ear, like all his faculties, is abnormally sensitive: and a wrong note will drive him into a frenzy. As the room grows fuller, he becomes restive. ”

“ And now, though not particularly keen on open-air enjoyment, she accepts his daily suggestion of a walk with her; and they go out into the beautiful meadows which were part of Hampstead a hundred years ago.
Keats is in his glory in the fields. Always, the humming of a bee, the sight of a flower, the glitter of the sun, have "seemed to make his nature tremble: then his eyes flashed, his cheek glowed, his mouth quivered." Peculiarly sensitive, as he is, to external influences, his chief delight is to "think of green fields ... ”

“ A devoted son and brother, one ready to sacrifice himself and his slender resources to the uttermost farthing for his mother, brothers, sister and friends—yet he has no vital interest in other folks' affairs, nor in current events, nor in ordinary social topics. Other people's poetry does not appeal to him, except that of Shakespeare, and of Homer—whom he does not know in the original, but who, through the poor medium of translation, has filled his soul with Grecian fantasies. ”

“ I am fit for nothing else but literature." He talks of taking up journalism—but in his heart he feels unfit for any regular profession, by reason both of physical weakness and a certain lack of system in mental work. The future becomes blackly, blankly overcast; the res augusta domi descend like a curtain between the sublimity of Keats and the calm commonsense of Fanny. ”

“ Keats is shy and ill at ease in women's society: but a "delightful combination of earnestness and pleasantry distinguishes his intercourse with men." He says fine things finely, jokes with ready humour, and at the mention of any oppression or wrong rises "into grave manliness at once, seeming like a tall man." ”

“ The young man now lights his candles, and takes up a familiar and favourite occupation;—the writing of a long letter to his brother George in America. This epistle is, as one might expect, almost entirely concerned with the art of poetry—what else has Keats to write about?—whether from the side of technique, or inspiration. He dwells on the adroit management of open and close vowels—he shows how "the poetry of earth is never dead;" he discusses the need of constant application to work, and how "the genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man." ”

“ That indefiniteness of literary aim—that want of willpower, without which genius is a curse, which have hampered the young man all along—are now still further emphasised by the restlessness of a passionate lover. ”

“ He gazes around him, with his weak dark eyes, upon the sky, the flowers, the various minutiæ of nature which mean so much to him: and although he has severely tried a never robust physique by sitting up half the night in study, a new exhilaration now throbs through his veins. ”

“ This is what he wrote after sitting up one night till daybreak with his friend Cowden Clarke, shouting with delight over the vistas newly revealed to him. And from that time on, he has luxuriated in dreams of classic beauty, warmed to new life by the sorcery of Romance. ”

“ A young man of twenty-three, ex-dresser at a hospital, who has abandoned his surgical career without adopting any other: with slender resources, and no occupation beyond that of producing verses which are held up to absolute derision by the great reviews. ”