SCOTLAND was the inspiration for several poems by John Keats, including the light-hearted Song About Myself (featured on Saturday). Here are two sonnets from his 1818 sortie to North Britain.
SONNET WRITTEN IN THE COTTAGE WHERE BURNS WAS BORN
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!
My pulse is warm with thine own
Barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou has tramped o’er and o’er, -
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,-
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name, -
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!
SONNET WRITTEN UPON THE TOP OF BEN NEVIS
Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak
it loud
Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist!
I look into the chasms, and a shroud
Vaporous doth hide them, - just so much I wist
Mankind do know of hell; I look o’erhead,
And there is sullen mist, - even so much
Mankind can tell of heaven; mist is spread
Before the earth, beneath me, - even such,
Even so vague is man’s sight of himself!
Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, -
Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf,
I tread on them, - that all my eye doth meet
Is mist and crag, not only on this height,
But in the world of thought and mental might!
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