strife, or else"--and then I listened more profoundly, and whispered as
I raised my head--"or else, oh heavens! it is _victory_ that is final,
victory that swallows up all strife."

(_The English Mail-coach_.)

{122}

JOHN KEATS 1795-1821

THE USE OF POETRY

I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this
manner--Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy or
distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and
reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream
upon it: until it becomes stale--But when will it do so? Never--When
Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and
spiritual passage serves him as a starting-post towards all "the
two-and-thirty Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception,
what delicious diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinder
it, and a nap upon Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings--the
prattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle-age a
strength to beat them--a strain of music conducts to "an odd angle of
the Isle," and when the leaves whisper it puts a girdle round the
earth.--Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverence
to their Writers--for perhaps the honours paid by Man to Man are
trifles in comparison to the benefit done by great works to the "spirit
and pulse of good" by their mere passive existence. Memory should not
be called Knowledge--Many have original minds who do not think it--they
are led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may,
like the spider, spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel--the
points of leaves and twigs on which {123} the spider begins her work
are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man should
be content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul, and
weave a tapestry empyrean--full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of
softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, of
distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different
and bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear
impossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or
three under these suppositions. It is however quite the contrary.
Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each
other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the
journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together and th