<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Much have travell'd in the realms of gold, and many goofly states and kingdoms seen;</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The poetry of earth is never dead:</li><li class="ql-align-justify">What is more gentle than a wind in summer?</li></ul>

This mortal body of a thousand days now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room, where thou didst dream alone on budded bays, happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">My wine -- O good! 'tis here at my desire, and I must sit to supper with my frior.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Oh! the sweetness of the pain!</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">O, lam frightened with most hateful thoughts!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">I met a Lady in the meads full beautiful, a fairy's child;</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Shed no tear! Oh shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!</li></ul>

What can I do to drive away remembrance from my eyes? For they have seen, ay, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen! Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, what can I do to kill it and be free in my old liberty?

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Bright Star would I were steadfast as thou art.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">'Shade of Memory!' Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Thy life answers the truth!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">As I will be of mercy! So, at last, this nail is in my temples!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Go no further; not a step more. Thou art a masterplague in the midst of miseries.</li></ul>

If he survive one hour, then may I die in unimagined tortures, or breathe through a long life in the foulest sink o' the world! He dies! 'Tis well she do not advertise the caitiff of the cold steel at his back.

O that that door with hollow slam would close upon me sudden! for I cannot meet, in all the unknown chambers of the dead, such horrors!

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Could all this be forgotten?</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Yet I rejoice:</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Will not some say that I presumptuously have spoken?</li><li class="ql-align-justify">I leave them as a father does his son.</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Her eloquence did breathe away the curse:</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The rather for the sun unwilling leaves so dear a picture of his sovereign power, and I could witness his most kingly hour,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole a breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Spreading imaginary pinions wide.</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Deliver me from this rapacious deep!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">O it has ruffled every spirit there,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Who stands superb to share the general gladness:</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Let us entwine hoveringly!</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">O Maker of sweet poets!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">So silently, it seems a beam of light come from the galaxy:</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Bereft of all that now my life endears? And can I e'er these benefits forget?</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">But what is higher beyond thought than thee?</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Life is the rose's hope while yet unblown;</li><li class="ql-align-justify">My soul to nothingness:</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Eternally around a dizzy void?</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness;</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Nor do we merely feel these essences for one short hour;</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Leading the way,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">All its completions.</li></ul>

Once more been tortured with renewed life. When last the wintry gusts gave over strife with the conquering sun of spring, and left the skies warm and serene, but yet with moisten'd eyes in pity of the shatter'd infant buds,

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">That time thou didst adorn, with amber studs,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">O sovereign power of love!</li></ul>

He heard but the last words, nor could contend one moment in reflection: for he fled into the fearful deep, to hide his head from the clear moan, the trees, and coming madness.

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">O dearth of human words!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Dian stands severe before me: persecuting fate!</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Enshrine such utmost beauty?</li><li class="ql-align-justify">I loved her to the very white of truth, and she would not conceive it.</li></ul>

Speechless they eyed each other, and about the fair assembly wander'd to and fro, distracted with the richest overflow of joy that ever pour'd from heaven.

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Then Love took wing,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint when, from thy diadem, a silver gleam slants over blue dominion.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyes on our souls' sacrifice.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Is there naught for me upon the bourne of bliss, but misery?</li></ul>

Ever let the fancy roam, pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet pleasure melteth, like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Those silver wings expanded sisterly,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Thus, in alternate uproar and sad peace, amazed were those Titans utterly.</li></ul>

As from the darkening gloom a silver dove upsoars, and darts into the Eastern light, on pinions that naught moves but pure delight, so fled thy soul into the realms above, regions of peace and everlasting love;

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">I saw her wrappit in her hood fra wind and raining.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Where Burns was born.</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Still fed by melting ice, he takes a draught.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">A dreary night of love and misery,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">But Selfishness, Love's cousin,</li><li class="ql-align-justify">And she had died in drowsy ignorance, but for a thing more deadly dark than all;</li></ul>

so I quoted some of my favorite words from the poems of john keats.

With an Introduction by Paul Wright. 'What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth' So wrote the Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) in 1817. This collection contains all of his poetry: the early work, which is often undervalued even today, the poems on which his reputation rests including the 'Odes' and the two versions of the uncompleted epic 'Hyperion', and work which only came to light after his death including his attempts at drama and comic verse. It all demonstrates the extent to which he tested his own dictum throughout his short creative life. That life spanned one of the most remarkable periods in English history in the aftermath of the French Revolution and this collection, with its detailed introductions and notes, aims to place the poems very much in their context. The collection is ample proof that Keats deservedly achieved his wish to 'be among the English Poets after my death'

#15

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Creativity and relaxation

11-15

HUGH MACLEOD