John Keats

My dear Clarke,

The busy time has just gone by, and I can now devote any time you may mention to the pleasure of seeing you. I saw Hunt the other day, and he surprised me with a real authenticated lock of Milton’s hair. I know you would like to see it.

I sat down to read King Lear once again the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a Sonnet, I wrote it & began to read—(I know you would like to see it)

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

What think you of this? I remember your saying that you had notions of a good Genius presiding over you—I have of late had the same thought. For things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of Propriety—Is it too daring to Fancy Shakespeare this Presider?

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Your sincere friend, John Keats