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4. THE IMMORTALITY OF BEAUTY

BEAUTY

JOHN KEATS

[From Endymion, 1818]

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth. Spite of despondence, of the inhuman. dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the
moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady

boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose

blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'er-

cast,

They always must be with us, or we die.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

JOHN KEATS

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.

"I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful-a fairy's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

"I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

"I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long, For sideways would she lean, and sing A fairy's song.

"She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said'I love thee true.'

"She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild, wild eyes, With kisses four.

"And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dream'd-ah! woe betide!The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side.

"I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!'

"I saw their starved lips in the gloom, With horrid warning gapèd wide; And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill's side.

"And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing."

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Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her
throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding

mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the

boughs,

But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on sum

mer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was

heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that ofttimes hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.

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Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu: And, happy melodist, unwearied,

Forever piping songs forever new;

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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 surmiseSilent, upon a peak in Darien.

WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE

JOHN KEATS

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high pilèd 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 fairy 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.

NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND

PROBLEMS

1. DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM

1. UTILITARIAN IDEAS OF LIBERTY

ON LIBERTY1

JOHN STUART MILL

[From On Liberty, 1859]

1. The Principle

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which

1I do not know whether then or at any other time so short a book ever instantly produced so wide and so important an effect on contemporary thought as did Mill's On Liberty in that day of intellectual and social fermentation (1859). It was like the effect of Emerson's awakening at the Phi Beta Kappa Society in New England in 1837. The thought of writing it first came into his head in 1855, as he was mounting the steps of the Capitol at Rome, the spot where the thought of the greatest of all literary histories had started into the mind of Gibbon just a hundred years before. He had been inclining towards overgovernment, both social and political; there was also, he says, a moment when, by reaction from a contrary excess, "I might have become a less thorough Radical and Democrat than I am." It was the composition of this book and the influence under which it grew that kept him right. Mill believed that no symmetry, no uniformity of custom and convention, but bold, free expansion in every field, was demanded by all the needs of human life, and the best instincts of the modern mind. For this reason, among others, he thought Carlyle made a great mistake in presenting Goethe as the example to the modern world of the lines on which it should shape itself. "You might as well," he said (1854), "attempt to cut down Shakespeare to a Greek drama, or a Gothic cathedral to a Greek temple." For this bold, free expansion to which Goethe's ideals were the opposite, these two hundred brief pages, without being in any sense volcanic, are a vigorous, argumentative, searching, noble, and moving appeal. Hittle volume belongs to the rare books that after hostile criticism has done its best are still found to have somehow added a cubit to man's stature. -From Recollections by Viscount Morley.

The

mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him or entreating him, but not compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. It is, perhaps, necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood and womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in

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