On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
Original Text
Richard Monckton Milnes, Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats (New York: Putnam, 1848). PR 4836 A4 1848 ROBA
2 Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
3 Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
4Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
5Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
6 Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
7 Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
8The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
9Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
10 Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
11When through the old oak forest I am gone,
12 Let me not wander in a barren dream,
13But when I am consumed in the fire,
14Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.
Notes
1] golden-tongued Romance. The meaning and identification is uncertain. Keats may be contrasting poetic romance and poetic tragedy in general in the sonnet; he may be thinking particularly of The Faerie Queene and King Lear; or in putting aside romance, he may have in mind, to some degree, his own Endymion: A Poetic Romance which he was revising for the press at this time. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1838
RPO poem Editors
J. R. MacGillivray
RPO Edition
3RP 2.622.
Rhyme