The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies - John Keats

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through the dismal air like one huge Python

      Antagonizing Boreas,–and so vanish’d.

      Yet there was not a breath of wind: she banish’d

      These phantoms with a nod. Lo! from the dark

      Came waggish fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs stark,

      With dancing and loud revelry,–and went

      Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent.–

      Sighing an elephant appear’d and bow’d

      Before the fierce witch, speaking thus aloud

      In human accent: “Potent goddess! chief

      Of pains resistless! make my being brief,

      Or let me from this heavy prison fly:

      Or give me to the air, or let me die!

      I sue not for my happy crown again;

      I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;

      I sue not for my lone, my widow’d wife;

      I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,

      My children fair, my lovely girls and boys!

      I will forget them; I will pass these joys;

      Ask nought so heavenward, so too–too high:

      Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die,

      Or be deliver’d from this cumbrous flesh,

      From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,

      And merely given to the cold bleak air.

      Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer!”

      That curst magician’s name fell icy numb

      Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come

      Naked and sabre-like against my heart.

      I saw a fury whetting a death-dart;

      And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright,

      Fainted away in that dark lair of night.

      Think, my deliverer, how desolate

      My waking must have been! disgust, and hate,

      And terrors manifold divided me

      A spoil amongst them. I prepar’d to flee

      Into the dungeon core of that wild wood:

      I fled three days–when lo! before me stood

      Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now,

      A clammy dew is beading on my brow,

      At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse.

      “Ha! ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse

      Made of rose leaves and thistledown, express,

      To cradle thee my sweet, and lull thee: yes,

      I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch:

      My tenderest squeeze is but a giant’s clutch.

      So, fairy-thing, it shall have lullabies

      Unheard of yet; and it shall still its cries

      Upon some breast more lily-feminine.

      Oh, no–it shall not pine, and pine, and pine

      More than one pretty, trifling thousand years;

      And then ‘twere pity, but fate’s gentle shears

      Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt!

      Young dove of the waters! truly I’ll not hurt

      One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh,

      That our heart-broken parting is so nigh.

      And must we part? Ah, yes, it must be so.

      Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe,

      Let me sob over thee my last adieus,

      And speak a blessing: Mark me! Thou hast thews

      Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race:

      But such a love is mine, that here I chase

      Eternally away from thee all bloom

      Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb.

      Hence shalt thou quickly to the watery vast;

      And there, ere many days be overpast,

      Disabled age shall seize thee; and even then

      Thou shalt not go the way of aged men;

      But live and wither, cripple and still breathe

      Ten hundred years: which gone, I then bequeath

      Thy fragile bones to unknown burial.

      Adieu, sweet love, adieu!”–As shot stars fall,

      She fled ere I could groan for mercy. Stung

      And poisoned was my spirit: despair sung

      A war-song of defiance ‘gainst all hell.

      A hand was at my shoulder to compel

      My sullen steps; another ‘fore my eyes

      Moved on with pointed finger. In this guise

      Enforced, at the last by ocean’s foam

      I found me; by my fresh, my native home.

      Its tempering coolness, to my life akin,

      Came salutary as I waded in;

      And, with a blind voluptuous rage, I gave

      Battle to the swollen billow-ridge, and drave

      Large froth before me, while there yet remain’d

      Hale strength, nor from my bones all marrow drain’d.

      “Young lover, I must weep–such hellish spite

      With dry cheek who can tell? While thus my might

      Proving upon this element, dismay’d,

      Upon a dead thing’s face my hand I laid;

      I look’d–’twas Scylla! Cursed, cursed Circe!

      O vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy?

      Could not thy harshest vengeance be content,

      But thou must nip this tender innocent

      Because I lov’d her?–Cold, O cold indeed

      Were her fair limbs, and like a common weed

      The sea-swell took her hair. Dead as she was

      I clung about her waist, nor ceas’d to pass

      Fleet as an arrow through unfathom’d brine,

      Until there shone a fabric crystalline,

      Ribb’d and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl.

      Headlong I darted; at one eager swirl

      Gain’d its bright portal, enter’d, and behold!

      ’Twas vast, and desolate, and icy-cold;

      And all around–But wherefore this to thee

      Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see?–

      I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled.

      My fever’d parchings up, my scathing dread

      Met palsy half way: soon these limbs became

      Gaunt, wither’d, sapless, feeble, cramp’d, and lame.

      “Now let me pass a cruel, cruel space,

      Without one hope, without one faintest trace

      Of mitigation, or redeeming bubble

      Of colour’d phantasy; for I fear ’twould trouble

      Thy brain to loss of reason: and next tell

      How a restoring chance came down to quell

      One half of the witch in me.

      “On

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