The Epistles, the Sonnets, and indeed the whole of the book, contain strong evidences of warm and social feelings, but particularly the Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke, and the Sonnet to his own Brothers, in which the “faint cracklings” of the coal-fire are said to be Like whispers of the household gods that keep A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls. The Epistle to Mr. Clarke is very amiable as well as poetical, and equally honourable to both parties,—to the young writer who can be so grateful towards his teacher, and to the teacher who had the sense to perceive his genius, and the qualities to call forth his affection. It consists chiefly of recollections of what his friend had pointed out to him in poetry and in general taste; and the lover of Spenser will readily judge of his preceptor’s qualifications, even from a single triplet, in which he is described, with a deep feeling of simplicity, as one Who had beheld Belphœbe in a brook, And lovely Una in a leafy nook, And Archimago leaning o’er his book.

The Epistle thus concludes:— Picture of Companionship. But many days have past— Since I have walk’d with you through shady lanes That freshly terminate in open plains, And revel’d in a chat that ceased not When at night-fall among your books we got: No, nor when supper came,—nor after that,— Nor when reluctantly I took my hat; No, nor till cordially you shook my hand Mid-way between our homes:—your accents bland Still sounded in my ears, when I no more Could hear your footsteps touch the grav’ly floor. Sometimes I lost them, and then found again; You chang’d the footpath for the grassy plain. In those still moments I have wish’d you joys That well you know to honour:—“Life’s very toys With him,” said I, “will take a pleasant charm; It cannot be that ought will work him harm.” And we can only add, without any disrespect to the graver warmth of our young poet, that if Ought attempted it, Ought would find he had stout work to do with more than one person.

The following passage in one of the Sonnets passes, with great happiness, from the mention of physical associations to mental; and concludes with a feeling which must have struck many a contemplative mind, that has found the sea-shore like a border, as it were, of existence. He is speaking of The Ocean The Ocean with it’s vastness, it’s blue green, It’s ships, it’s rocks, it’s caves,—it’s hopes, it’s fears,— It’s voice mysterious, which whoso hears Must think on what will be, and what has been. We have read somewhere the remark of a traveller, who said that when he was walking alone at night-time on the sea-shore, he felt conscious of the earth, not as the common every day sphere it seems, but as one of the planets, rolling round him in the mightiness of space. The same feeling is common to imaginations that are not in need of similar local excitements.

The best poem is certainly the last and longest, entitled Sleep and Poetry. It originated in sleeping in a room adorned with busts and pictures, and is a striking specimen of the restlessness of the young poetical appetite, obtaining its food by the very desire of it, and glancing for fit subjects of creation “from earth to heaven.” Nor do we like it the less for an impatient, and as it may be thought by some, irreverend assault upon the late French school of criticism and monotony, which has held poetry chained long enough to render it somewhat indignant when it has got free.

The following ardent passage is highly imaginative:

Mr. Keats takes an opportunity, though with very different feelings towards the school than he has exhibited towards the one above-mentioned, to object to the morbidity that taints the productions of the Lake Poets. They might answer perhaps, generally, that they chuse to grapple with what is unavoidable, rather than pretend to be blind to it; but the more smiling Muse may reply, that half of the evils alluded to are produced by brooding over them; and that it is much better to strike at as many causes of the rest as possible, than to pretend to be satisfied with them in the midst of the most evident dissatisfaction. Happy Poetry Preferred. These things are doubtless: yet in truth we’ve had Strange thunders from the potency of song; Mingled indeed with what is sweet and strong, From majesty: but in clear truth the themes Are ugly clubs, the Poets Polyphemes Disturbing the grand sea. A drainless shower Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; ’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm. The very archings of her eye-lids charm A thousand willing agents to obey, And still she governs with the mildest sway: But strength alone though of the Muses born Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. We conclude with the beginning of the paragraph which follows this passage, and which contains an idea of as lovely and powerful a nature in embodying an abstraction, as we ever remember to have seen put into words:— Yet I rejoice: a myrtle fairer than E’er grew in Paphos, from the bitter weeds Lifts it’s sweet head into the air, and feeds A silent space with ever sprouting green.

Upon the whole, Mr. Keats’s book cannot be better described than in a couplet written by Milton when he too was young, and in which he evidently alludes to himself. It is a little luxuriant heap of Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream.