To Haydon

Portrait of John Keats
John Keats 1795–1821

Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things; Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, That what I want I know not where to seek, And think that I would not be over-meek, In rolling out upfollowed thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, Were I of ample strength for such a freak. Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine; Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem? For, when men stared at what was most divine With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm, Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine Of their star in the east, and gone to worship them!

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