Keats / Motion John Keats

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ISBN: 978-0-571-26317-2
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature. 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. -- Endymion

John Keats (1795-1821) abandoned a career in medicine to write poetry, until his life was cut tragically short from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five. By that time, he had published three volumes of verse to an unreceptive critical response. But as the nineteenth century wore on Keats' reputation would build, and today he is recognised as one of the greatest of the Romantic poets. Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009; he is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and co-founder of the online Poetry Archive. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, and has published four celebrated biographies. His memoir, In the Blood (2006), was described as 'the most moving and exquisitely written account of childhood loss I have ever read' in the Independent on Sunday. His most recent collection of poems, The Cinder Path (2009), was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Andrew Motion was knighted for his services to poetry in 2009.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Keats, John

Motion, Andrew

Leseproben

Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil

I

Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!

Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love’s eye!

They could not in the self-same mansion dwell

Without some stir of heart, some malady;

They could not sit at meals but feel how well

It soothed each to be the other by;

They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep

But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II

With every morn their love grew tenderer,

With every eve deeper and tenderer still;

He might not in house, field, or garden stir,

But her full shape would all his seeing fill;

And his continual voice was pleasanter

To her than noise of trees or hidden rill;

Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,

She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

III

He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch

Before the door had given her to his eyes;

And from her chamber-window he would catch

Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;

And constant as her vespers would he watch,

Because her face was turned to the same skies;

And with sick longing all the night outwear,

To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

IV

A whole long month of May in this sad plight

Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:

‘To-morrow will I bow to my delight,

To-morrow will I ask my lady’s boon.’

‘O may I never see another night,

Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love’s tune.’

So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,

Honeyless days and days did he let pass –

V

Until sweet Isabella’s untouched cheek

Fell sick within the rose’s just domain,

Fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek

By every lull to cool her infant’s pain:

‘How ill she is,’ said he, ‘I may not speak,

And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:

If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,

And at the least ’twill startle off her cares.’

VI

So said he one fair morning, and all day

His heart beat awfully against his side;

And to his heart he inwardly did pray

For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide

Stifled his voice, and pulsed resolve away –

Fevered his high conceit of such a bride,

Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:

Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

VII

So once more he had waked and anguishèd

A dreary night of love and misery,

If Isabel’s quick eye had not been wed

To every symbol on his forehead high.

She saw it waxing very pale and dead,

And straight all flushed; so, lispèd tenderly,

‘Lorenzo!’ – here she ceased her timid quest,

But in her tone and look he read the rest.

VIII

‘O Isabella, I can half-perceive

That I may speak my grief into thine ear.

If thou didst ever anything believe,

Believe how I love thee, believe how near

My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve

Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear

Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live

Another night, and not my passion shrive.

IX

Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,

Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,

And I must taste the blossoms that unfold

In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.’

So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,

And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:

Great bliss was with them, and great happiness

Grew, like a lusty flower, in June’s caress.

X

Parting they seemed to tread upon the air,

Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart

Only to meet again more close, and share

The inward fragrance of each other’s heart.

She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair

Sang, of delicious love and honeyed dart;

He with light steps went up a western hill,

And bade the sun farewell, and joyed his fill.

XI

All close they met again, before the dusk

Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,

All close they met, all eves, before the dusk

Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,

Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,

Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.

Ah! better had it been for ever so,

Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

XII

Were they unhappy then? – It cannot be –

Too many tears for lovers have been shed,

Too many sighs give we to them in fee,

Too much of pity after they are dead,

Too many doleful stories do we see,

Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;

Except in such a page where Theseus’ spouse

Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

XIII

But, for the general award of love,

The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;

Though Dido silent is in under-grove,

And Isabella’s was a great distress,

Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove

Was not embalmed, this truth is not the less –

Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,

Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

XIV

With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,

Enrichèd from ancestral merchandise,

And for them many a weary hand did swelt

In torchèd mines and noisy factories,

And many once proud-quivered loins did melt

In blood from stinging whip – with hollow eyes

Many all day in dazzling river stood,

To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

XV

For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,

And went all naked to the hungry shark;

For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death

The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark

Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe

A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:

Half-ignorant, they turned an easy wheel,

That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel.

XVI

Why were they proud? Because their marble founts

Gushed with more pride than do a wretch’s tears? –

Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts

Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs? –

Why were they proud? Because red-lined accounts

Were richer than the songs of Grecian years? –

Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,

Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

XVII

Yet were these Florentines as self-retired

In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,

As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,

Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies –

The hawks of ship-mast forests – the untired

And panniered mules for ducats and old lies –

Quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away –

Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

XVIII

How was it these same ledger-men could spy

Fair Isabella in her downy nest?

How could they find out in Lorenzo’s eye

A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt’s pest

Into their vision covetous and sly!

How could these money-bags see east and west? –

Yet so they did – and every dealer fair

Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

XIX

O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!

Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,

And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,

And of thy roses amorous of the moon,

And of thy lilies, that do paler grow

Now they can no more hear thy gittern’s tune.

For venturing syllables that ill beseem

The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

XX

Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale

Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;

There is no other crime, no mad assail

To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:

But it is done – succeed the verse or fail –

To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet,

To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,

An echo of thee in the north wind sung.

XXI

These brethren having found by many signs

What love Lorenzo for their sister had,

And how she loved him too, each unconfines

His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad

That he, the servant of their trade designs,

Should in their sister’s love be blithe and glad,

When ’twas their plan to coax her by degrees

To some high noble and his olive-trees.

XXII

And many a jealous conference had they,

And many times they bit their lips alone,

Before they fixed upon a surest way

To make the youngster for his crime atone;

And at the last, these men of cruel clay

Cut Mercy with a...