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July 1, 1819
My dearest Lady:
I am glad I had not an opportunity of sending off
a letter which I wrote for you on Tuesday night - t'was too much like one
out of Rousseau' Heloise. I am more reasonable this morning.
The morning is the only proper time for me to write to a beautiful girl
whom I love so much: for at night, when the day has closed, and the lonely,
silent, unmusical Chamber is waiting to receive me as into a sepulcher,
then believe me my passion gets entirely the sway, then I would not have
you see those rhapsodies which I once thought it impossible I should ever
give way to, and which I have often laughed at in another, for fear you
should think me either too unhappy or perhaps a little mad. I am now at
a very pleasant Cottage window, looking onto a beautiful hilly country,
with a glimpse of the sea; the morning is fine; I do not know how elastic
my spirit might be, what pleasure I might have in living here and breathing
and wandering as free as a stag about this beautiful coast if the remembrance
of you did not weigh upon me. I have never known any unalloyed Happiness
for many days together: the death or sickness of some one has always spoilt
my hours - and now when none such troubles oppress me, it is you must confess
very hard that another sort of pain should haunt me. Ask yourself my love
whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed
my freedom. Will you confess this in the letter you must write immediately
and do all you can to console me in it - make it rich as a draught of poppies
to intoxicate me - write the softest words and kiss them that I may at
least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to
express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright,
a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but
three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight
than fifty common years could ever contain. But however selfish I may feel,
I am sure I could never act selfishly: as I told you a day or two before
I left Hampstead, I will never return to London if my Fate does not turn
up Pam or at least a Court - yard. Though I could center my happiness in
you, I cannot expect to engross your heart so entirely - indeed if I thought
you felt as much for me as I do for you at this moment I do not think I
could restrain myself from seeing you again tomorrow for the delight of
one embrace. But no - I must live upon hope and Chance. In case of the
worst that can happen, I shall still love you - but what hatred shall I
have for another! Some lines I read the other day are continually ringing
a peal in my ears:
To
see those eyes I prize above mine own
Dart favors on another --
And those sweet lips (yielding immortal nectar)
Be gently pressed by any but myself --
Think, think Francesca, what a cursed thing
It were beyond expression!
Do write immediately. There is no post from this place, so you must
address Post office, New Port, Isle of wright. I know before night I shall
curse myself for having sent you so cold a letter, yet it is better to
do it as much in my senses as possible. Be as kind as the distance will
permit to yours.
j. Keats
July 8, 1819
My sweet Girl,
Your letter gave me more
delight, than anything in the world but yourself could do; indeed, I am
almost astonished that any absent one should have that luxurious power
over my senses which I feel. Even when I am not thinking of you I receive
your influence and a tenderer nature stealing upon me. All my thoughts,
my unhappiest days and nights have I find not at all cured me of my love
of beauty, but made it so intense that I am miserable that you are not
with me; or, rather that I breathe in that dull sort of patience that cannot
be called life. I never knew before, what such a love as yours made me
feel, was; I did not believe in it; my fancy was afraid of it, lest
it should burn me up. But, if you will fully love me, though there may
be some fire, twill not be more than we can bear when we moistened and
bedewed with pleasures. You mention horrid people and ask me whether it
depended on them, whether I see you again. Do understand me, my love, in
this. I have so much of you in my heart that I must turn Mentor when I
see a chance of harm baffling you. I would never see anything but pleasure
in your eyes, love on your lips, and Happiness in your steps. I would wish
to see you among those amusements suitable to your inclinations and spirits;
so that our loves might be a delight in the midst of pleasures agreeable
enough, rather than a resource from vexations and cares. But I doubt much,
in case of the worst, whether I shall be philosopher enough to follow my
own lessons: If I saw my resolution give you a pain I could not. Why may
I not speak of your Beauty, since without that I could never have loved
you. I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I have but for
beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer
at it, I have the highest respect and can admire it in others; but it has
not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after
my own heart. So let me speak of your Beauty, though to my own endangering;
if you could be so cruel to me as to try elsewhere its Power. You say you
are afraid I shall think you do not love me -- in saying this you make
me ache the more to be near you. I am at the diligent use of my faculties
here, I do not pass a day without spawling some blank verse or tagging
some rhymes; and here, I must confess, that, (since I am on that subject),
I love you the more in that I believe you have liked me for my own sake
and for nothing else. I have met with women whom I really think would like
to be married to a poem and given away by a novel. I have seen your Comet,
and only wish it was a sign that poor Rice would get well whose illness
makes him rather a poor companion: and the more so as so to conquer his
feelings and hide them from me, with a forced pun. I kissed your writing
over in the hope you had indulged me by leaving a trace of honey -- What
was your dream? Tell it me and I will tell you the interpretation thereof.
Ever yours, my love
J. Keats
Do not accuse me of delay
-- we have not here an opportunity of sending letters every day. Write
speedily.
July 25, 1819
My sweet Girl
I hope you did not blame me much for not obeying
your request of a letter on Saturday: we have had four in our small room
playing at cards night and morning leaving me no undisturbed opportunity
to write. Now Rice and Martin are gone I am at liberty. Brown to my sorrow
confirms the account you give of your ill health. You cannot conceive how
I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour -- for what is in the
world? I say you cannot conceive; it is impossible you should look with
such eyes upon me as I have upon you: it cannot be forgive me if I wonder
a little this evening, for I have been all day employed in a very abstract
poem and I am in deep love with you -- two things which must excuse me.
I have, believe me, not been an age in letting you take possession of me;
the very first week I knew you I wrote myself your vessel; but burnt the
Letter as the very next time I saw you I thought you manifested some dislike
to me. If you should ever feel for Man at the first sight what I did for
you, I am lost. Yet, I should not quarrel with you, but hate myself if
such a thing were to happen - only I should burst if the thing were not
as fine as a Man as you are as a woman. Perhaps I am too vehement, then
fancy me on my knees, especially when I mention a part of your letter which
hurt me; you say speaking of M. Severn "but you must be satisfied in knowing
that I admired you much more than your friend." My dear love, I cannot
believe there ever was or ever could be any thing to admire in me especially
as far as sight goes - I cannot be admired. I am not a thing to be admired.
You are, I love you; all I can bring you is a swooning admiration of your
beauty. I hold that place among men which snub-nosed brunets with meeting
eyebrows do among women - they are trash to me -- unless I should find
one among them with a fire in her heart like the one that burns in mine.
You absorb me in spite of myself - you alone. for I look not forward with
any pleasure to what is called being settled in the world; I tremble at
domestic cares -- yet for you I would meet them, though if it would leave
you the happier I would rather die than do so. I have two luxuries to brood
over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could
have possession of them both in the same minute. I hate the world:
it batters too much the wings of my self will, and would I could take a
sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it. From no others would
I take it. I am indeed astosnish'd to find myself so careless of charms
but yours - remembering as I do the time when ever a bit of ribband was
a matter of interest with me. What softer words can find for you after
this -- what it is I will not read. Nor will I say more here, but in a
postscript answer any thing else you may have mentioned un your letter
in so many words -- for I am distracted with a thousand thoughts. I will
imagine you Venus to-night and pray, pray, pray, to your star like a He(a)then
Yours ever, fair star
John Keats
Oct. 13, 1819
My dearest Girl:
This moment I have set myself to copy some verses
out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you
a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind
for ever so short a time. Upon my soul I can think of nothing else. The
time is passed when I had power to advice and warn you against the unpromising
morning of my life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without
you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again - my life seems
to stop there - I see no further. You have absorbed me. I have a sensation
at the present moment as though I am dissolving -- I should be exquisitely
miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate
myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love,
will it? I have no limit now to my love - your note came in just here --
I cannot be happier away from you. Tis richer than an argosy of pearls.
Do not threat me even in jest. I have been astonished that Men could die
Martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could
be martyred for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that.
I could die for you. My creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have
ravished me away by a power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till
I saw you; and ever since I have seen you I have endeavored often o reason
against the reasons of my love. I can do that no more- the pain would be
too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breath without you.
Yours for ever
John Keats
May 1820
My dearest Girl,
I wrote a letter for you yesterday expecting to
have seen your mother. I shall be selfish enough to send it though I know
it may give you a little pain, because I wish you to see how unhappy I
am for love of you, and endeavor as much as I can to entice you to give
up your whole heart to me whose whole existence hangs upon you. You could
not step or move an eyelid but it would shoot my heart -- I am greedy of
you. Do no think of anything but me. Do not live as if I was not existing
- Do not forget me - But have I any right to say you forget me? Perhaps
you think of me all day. Have I any right to wish you to be unhappy for
me? You would forgive me for wishing it, if you knew the extreme passion
I have that you should love me - and for you to love me as I do you, you
must think of no one but me, much less write that sentence. Yesterday and
this morning I have been haunted with a sweet vision - I have seen you
the whole time in your shepherdess dress. How my senses have ached at it!
How my heart has been devoted to it! How my eyes have been full of Tears
at it! Indeed I think a real love is enough to occupy the widest heart
- your going to town alone, when I heard of it was a shock to me - yet
I expected it - promise me you will not for some time, till I get better.
Promise me you will not for some time, till I get better. Promise
me this and fill the paper full of the most endearing names. If you cannot
do so with good will, do my love tell me - say what you think - confess
if your heart is too much fastened on the world. Perhaps then I may see
you at a greater distance. I may not be able to appropriate you so closely
to myself. Were you to loose a favorite bird from the cage, how would your
eyes ache after it as long as it was in sight; when out of sight you would
recover a little. Perhaps if you would, if so it is, confess to me how
many things are necessary to you beside me, I might be happier, by being
less tantalized. Well may you exclaim, how selfish, how cruel, not to let
me enjoy my youth! to wish to be unhappy! You must be so if you love me
- upon my soul I can be contented with nothing else. If you could really
what is called enjoy yourself at a party - if you can smile in people's
faces, and wish them to admire you now, you never have nor ever will love
me. I see life in nothing but the certainty of your love - convince me
of it my sweetest. If I am not somehow convinced, I shall die of agony.
If we love we must not live as other men and women do - I cannot brook
the wolfs bane of fashion and foppery and tattle. You must be mine to die
upon the rack if I want you. I do not pretend to say I have more feeling
than my fellows - but I wish you seriously to look over my letters kind
and unkind and consider whether the person who wrote them can endure much
longer the agonies and uncertainties which you are so peculiarly made to
create - my recovery of bodily health will be of no benefit to me if you
are not all mine when I am well. For God's sake save me - or tell me my
passion is of too awful a nature for you. Again God bless you.
J.K.
No- my sweet Fanny - I am wrong. I do not want you to be unhappy -
and yet I do, I must while there is so sweet a beauty - my loveliest my
darling! Good bye! I kiss you - O the torments!
July 5 ,1820 My dearest girl,
I have walked this morning with a book in my hand,
but as usual I have been occupied with nothing but you: I wish I could
say in an agreeable manner. I am tormented day and night. They talk of
my going to Italy. Tis certain I shall never recover if I am to be
so long separate from you: yet with all this devotion to you I cannot persuade
myself into any confidence of you. Past experience connected with the fact
of my long separation from you gives me agonies which are scarcely to be
talked of. When your mother comes I shall be very sullen and expert in
asking her whether you have been to Mrs. Dilke's, for she might say no
to make me easy. I am literally worn to death, which seems my only recourse.
I cannot forget what has passed. What? nothing with a man of the world,
but to me dreadful. I will get rid of this as much as possible. When you
were in the habit of flirting with Brown you would have left off, could
your own heart have felt one half of one pang mine did. Brown is a good
sort of man -- he did not know he was doing me to death in inches. I feel
the effect of every one of those hours in my side now; and for that cause,
though at this moment I should be without pence were it not for his assistance.
I will never see or speak to him until we are both old men, if it were
to be. I will resent my heart having been made a football. You will call
this madness. I have heard you say that it was not unpleasant to wait a
few hours - you have amusements - your mind is away - you have not brooded
over one idea as I have, and how should you? YOu are to me an object intensely
desirable - the air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy. I am
not the same to you - no - you can wait - you have a thousand activities
- you can be happy without me. Any party, any thing to fill up the day
has been enough. How have you passed this month? Who have you smiled with?
All this may seem savage in me. You do not feel as I do - you do not know
what it is to love, one day you may, your time is not come. Ask yourself
how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in loneliness. For myself I
have been a martyr the whole time, and for this reason I speak; the confession
is forced from me by the torture. I appeal to you by the blood of that
christ you believe in: Do not write to me of you have done anything this
month which it would have pained me to have seen. You may have altered
-- if you have not -- if you still behave in dancing rooms and other societies
as I have seen you -- if you have done so I wish this coming night may
e my last. I cannot live without you, and not only you but chaste you;
virtuous you. The sun rises and sets, the day passes, and you follow the
bent of your inclination to a certain extent - you have no conception of
the quantity of miserable feeling that passes through me in a day. -- Be
serious! Love is not a plaything -- and again do not write unless you can
do with a crystal conscience. I would sooner die for want of you than --
Yours forever
J. Keats
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