'I STOOD TIPTOE UPON A

LITTLE HILL'

'Places of nestling green, for poets made.'

LEIGH HUNT, The Story of Rimini.

Leigh Hunt, in Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, says that this poem was suggested to Keats by a delightful summer's day as he stood beside the gate that leads from the Battery on Hampstead Heath into a field by Caen Wood; but it is not needful for one to put himself into the same geographical position. It is more to the point to remember that when Keats wrote the lines which here follow he was living in the Vale of Health in Hampstead, happy in the association of Hunt and kindred spirits, and trembling with the consciousness of his own poetic power. He had not yet essayed a long flight, as in Endymion; but these lines indeed were written as a prelude to a poem which he was devising, which should narrate the loves of Diana, and it will be seen how, with circling flight, he draws nearer and nearer to his theme; but after all, his song ends with a half agitated and passionate speculation over his own poetic birth. The date of the poem,

which is the first after the dedication, in the 1817 volume, was presumably in the summer of 1816, for Keats appears to have written promptly under the stimulus of momentary experience.

I STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride

Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly-leaved and finely tapering stems,

Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,

And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept

On the blue fields of heaven, and then there

Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green. There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye

To

peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim; To picture out the quaint and curious bending

Of a fresh woodland alley, never-ending; 20 Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves, Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free As though the fanning wings of Mercury Had played upon my heels: I was lighthearted,

And many pleasures to my vision started; So I straightway began to pluck a posey Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy.

A bush of May flowers with the bees about them;

Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them;

30

And let a lush laburnum oversweep them, And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them

Moist, cool, and green; and shade the vio lets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

A filbert hedge with wild briar over

twined,

And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind

Upon their summer thrones; there too should be

The frequent chequer of a youngling tree, That with a score of light green brethren shoots

From the quaint mossiness of aged roots: 40 Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters

Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters The spreading blue-bells: it may haply

mourn

That such fair clusters should be rudely

torn

Or by the moon lifting her silver rim
Above a cloud, and with a gradual swim
Coming into the blue with all her light.
O Maker of sweet poets, dear delight
Of this fair world, and all its gentle livers;
Spangler of clouds, halo of crystal rivers,
Mingler with leaves, and dew and tumbling
streams,

Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, 120
Lover of loneliness, and wandering,
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering!
Thee must I praise above all other glo-
ries

That smile us on to tell delightful stories.
For what has made the sage or poet write
But the fair paradise of Nature's light?
In the calm grandeur of a sober line,
We see the waving of the mountain pine;
And when a tale is beautifully staid,
We feel the safety of a hawthorn glade: 130
When it is moving on luxurious wings,
The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings:
Fair dewy roses brush against our faces,
And flowering laurels spring from diamond