( 186 ) 



THE POEMS OF JOHN KEATS. 



No. II. 



IF Keats, as we showed in our last notice, failed in completing the 

 two vast ideal fabrics which he intended, and only left in their place 

 a heap of ill-combined images without life and order, yet grand 

 even in their confusion, let us examine with what success he attempted 

 other subjects requiring less sustained power. We have now before 

 us two short but finished poems by the same lamented young bard, 

 entitled, " Isabella, or the Pat of Basil," and " The Eve of St. 

 Agnes." The first of these is a tale of Boccacio versified, and, 

 although the subject is somewhat beyond nature, it is not wanting in 

 true tenderness and poetry. Isabel and Lorenzo, two beings whom 

 the reader may invest severally with all that is beautiful in maiden- 

 hood and gallant in manhood, could not dwell beneath the same 

 roof without feeling "that stir of heart, that malady," which, as time 

 has shown them a fuller reflection of each other's graces, has grown 

 into love. In the days of Lorenzo and Isabel (and even now if chi- 

 valry be not wholly lost), love was a coy passion, which filled the 

 heart with unutterable emotions, was silent and reserved to all the 

 world, and could scarcely breathe forth its adoration even to one 

 beloved object. And so these beings continued to love on, entranced 

 in the elysium of each other's presence, without daring to break the 

 magic silence, until their cheeks grew pale for very thought, and 

 Isabel, in the fulness of feminine pity, having whispered her interest 

 for Lorenzo's malady in his ear, their mutual vows were plighted, 

 and they became 



" Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart, 

 Only to meet again more close, and share 

 The inward fragrance of each other's heart." 



But the mutual bliss of the young and loving hearts was not to con- 

 tinue untainted. Even love, though it rises like a bright exhalation 

 from darkness and sorrow, has enemies who would quench it utterly. 

 Isabel has two brothers, for whom, Keats tells us, many a weary hand 

 laboured " in torched mines and noisy factories," and many a slave 



"with hollow eyes 



All day within some chilly river stood, 

 To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood." 



These merchant-brothers, like many others of the same class, are 

 proud. Why? asks Keats ; because they had rich marble founts, 

 which they had gained from the tears and pangs of other men, or 

 because they had orange-groves, planted and reared by labour not 

 their own, or because mark, gentle reader ! 



"red-lined accounts 

 Were richer than the songs of Grecian years." 



