{
 "id": "john-keats/epistle-to-john-hamilton-reynolds",
 "title": "Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Keats",
 "poet_slug": "john-keats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats",
 "book_slug": "life-letters-and-literary-remains",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1848,
  "venue": "Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats (1848)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/lifelettersliter00keat",
   "https://archive.org/details/lifelettersliter02keat"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-keats_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/completepoetical01keat",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005261190"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 109,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Reynolds! As last night I lay in bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There came before my eyes that wonted thread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That every other minute vex and please:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Things all disjointed come from north and south,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two Witch’s eyes above a Cherub’s mouth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Alexander with his nightcap on;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth’s cat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making the best of ’s way towards Soho.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Few are there who escape these visitings,⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thro’ whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid’s toes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And young Æolian harps personify’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some Titian colours touch’d into real life,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mariners join hymn with those on land.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You know the Enchanted Castle,⁠—it doth stand",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon a rock, on the border of a Lake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nested in trees, which all do seem to shake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From some old magic-like Urganda’s sword.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Phœbus! that I had thy sacred word",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To show this Castle, in fair dreaming wise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unto my friend, while sick and ill he lies!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You know it well enough, where it doth seem",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A mossy place, a Merlin’s Hall, a dream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You know the clear Lake, and the little Isles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mountains blue, and cold near neighbour rills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All which elsewhere are but half animate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There do they look alive to love and hate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above some giant, pulsing underground.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Part of the building was a chosen See,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Built by a banish’d Santon of Chaldee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The other part, two thousand years from him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then there’s a little wing, far from the Sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Built by a Lapland Witch turn’d maudlin Nun;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And many other juts of aged stone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Founded with many a mason-devil’s groan.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The doors all look as if they op’d themselves:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The windows as if latch’d by Fays and Elves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from them comes a silver flash of light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As from the westward of a Summer’s night;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or like a beauteous woman’s large blue eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone mad through olden songs and poesies.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See! what is coming from the distance dim!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A golden Galley all in silken trim!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Three rows of oars are lightning, moment whiles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the verd’rous bosoms of those isles;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Towards the shade, under the Castle wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It comes in silence,⁠—now ’tis hidden all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An echo of sweet music doth create",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fear in the poor Herdsman who doth bring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To all his friends, and they believe him not.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Would all their colours from the sunset take:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From something of material sublime,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rather than shadow our own soul’s day-time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the dark void of night. For in the world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We jostle,⁠—but my flag is not unfurl’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the Admiral-staff⁠—and so philosophise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I dare not yet! O, never will the prize,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High reason, and the love of good and ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be my award! Things cannot to the will",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or is it imagination brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cannot refer to any standard law",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In happiness, to see beyond our bourn.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It forces us in summer skies to mourn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And cannot speak it: the first page I read",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon a Lampit rock of green sea-weed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the breakers; ’twas a quiet eve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An untumultuous fringe of silver foam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along the flat brown sand; I was at home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And should have been most happy,⁠—but I saw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too far into the sea, where every maw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The greater on the less feeds evermore.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I saw too distinct into the core",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of an eternal fierce destruction,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so from happiness I far was gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still am I sick of it, and though to-day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve gather’d young spring-leaves, and flowers gay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of periwinkle and wild strawberry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still do I that most fierce destruction see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Shark at savage prey,⁠—the Hawk at pounce,⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ravening a worm,⁠—Away, ye horrid moods!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moods of one’s mind! You know I hate them well.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You know I’d sooner be a clapping Bell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To some Kamschatkan Missionary Church,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than with these horrid moods be left i’ the lurch.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}