SHARING EVE'S APPLE. I. BLUSH not so! O blush not so! Or I shall think you knowing; And if you smile the blushing while, Then maidenheads are going. 2. There's a blush for won't, and a blush for shan't, And a blush for having done it : There's a blush for thought and a blush for nought, And a blush for just begun it. 3. O sigh not so! O sigh not so! For it sounds of Eve's sweet pippin; By these loosen'd lips you have tasted the pips 4. Will you play once more at nice-cut-core, And we have the prime of the kissing time, We have not one sweet tooth out. This song, belonging to the year 1818, has not, I believe, been published till now. It seems to me neither more nor less worthy of Keats's reputation than the Daisy's Song in the foregoing Extracts 5. There's a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no, And a sigh for I can't bear it! O what can be done, shall we stay or run? from an Opera; but, notwithstanding the brilliant qualities of some of the stanzas, I should have hesitated to be instrumental in adding it to the poet's published works, had it not been handed about in manuscript and more than once copied. SONG. I HAD a dove and the sweet dove died; O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied, Sweet little red feet! why should you die Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why? You liv'd alone in the forest-tree, Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me? I kiss'd you oft and gave you white peas; Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees? This song was given in the Life, Letters &c., among the Literary Remains in Volume II, under the date 1818. SONNET. To a Lady seen for a few Moments at Vauxhall. TIME'S sea hath been five years at its slow ebb, Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. And yet I never look on midnight sky, But I behold thine eyes' well memory'd light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye, But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight. I cannot look on any budding flower, But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips And harkening for a love-sound, doth devour Its sweets in the wrong sense :-Thou dost eclipse Every delight with sweet remembering, And grief unto my darling joys dost bring. Published in Hood's Magazine for April 1844, headed " Sonnet by the late John Keats," and given by Lord Houghton in 1848 among the Literary Remains, undated, and headed "To -", with a foot-note to the effect of the heading here adopted. The two versions must be from different manuscripts, that used by Lord Houghton probably the later. In the Magazine line I is— Life's sea hath been five times at its slow ebb, and line 7 reads I never gaze for I cannot look; in line 9 never stands in place of cannot; and the final couplet is— Other delights with thy remembering And sorrow to my darling joys doth bring. ACROSTIC: Georgiana Augusta Keats. GIVE me your patience, sister, while I frame Exact in capitals your golden name; Or sue the fair Apollo and he will Rouse from his heavy slumber and instill Great love in me for thee and Poesy. 5 Imagine not that greatest mastery And kingdom over all the Realms of verse, Nears more to heaven in aught, than when we nurse And surety give to love and Brotherhood. Anthropophagi in Othello's mood; ΙΟ Ulysses storm'd and his enchanted belt Glow with the Muse, but they are never felt Such tender incense in their laurel shade To all the regent sisters of the Nine 15 This acrostic seems to have been written at the foot of Helvellyn on the 27th of June 1818; for although it appears in the Winchester journal-letter of September 1819 as given in the New York World of the 25th of June 1877, it purports to be copied from an old letter which reached Liverpool after the George Keatses had sailed for America, and which was therefore returned to the poet. The words "Foot of Helvellyn, June 27th", are printed in The World as |