On John Keats and the Struggle to Write

This morning I copied out Keats's "Ode to Indolence," least well known of the poet's odes and, according to his biographer, Walter Jackson Bate, "far below the standard of the other odes; . . . its value is primarily biographical." Yet for someone who is struggling to write (or to stop caring about trying to write), the ode may have a great deal of power.

Following is the poem and, after it, a quotation from the Bate biography . . . which is, as I have already told many people, the greatest literary biography that I have ever read.

Ode on Indolence

John Keats

“They toil not, neither do they spin.”

  I.

One morn before me were three figures seen,

            With bowed necks, and join’d hands, side-faced;

And one behind the other stepp’d serene,

            In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;

They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,

            When shifted round to see the other side;

                        They came again; as when the urn once more

Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;

            And they were strange to me, as may betide

                        With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

 

  II.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?

            How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?

Was it a silent deep-disguised plot

            To steal away, and leave without a task

My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;

            The blissful cloud of summer-indolence

                        Benumbed my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;

Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower:

            O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense

                        Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?

 

  III.

A third time came they by;--alas! wherefore?

            My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;

My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er

            With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:

The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,

            Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;

                        The open casement press’d a new-leav’d vine,

Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;

            O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!

                        Upon your skirts had fallen no tear of mine.

 

  IV.

A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d

            Each one the face a moment whiles to me;

Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d

            And ached for wings because I knew the three;

The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;

            The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,

                        And ever watchful with fatigued eye;

The last, whom I love more, the more of blame

            Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,--

                        I knew to be my demon Poesy.

 

  V.

They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:

            O folly! What is Love! and where is it?

And for that poor Ambition! it springs

            From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;

For Poesy!—no,--she has not a joy,--

            At least for me,--so sweet as drowsy noons,

                        And evenings steep’d in honied indolence;

O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,

            That I may never know how change the moons,

                        Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

 

  VI.

So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise

            My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;

For I would not be dieted with praise,

            A pet lamb in a sentimental farce!

Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more

            In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;

                        Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

And for the day faint visions there is store;

            Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,

                        Into the clouds, and never more return!

from John Keats: A Biography

Walter Jackson Bate

The interest of the poem lies in the unexpected confessions that emerge in the last two stanzas. . . . Throughout the autumn he had been able to take the reviews of Endymion in his stride, partly because of the daily anxiety about [his tubercular, dying brother] Tom and partly because he was so preoccupied with Hyperion, which was then going forward rapidly. But in the months that followed the death of Tom, moments of misgiving and self-uncertainty had multiplied. . . . It was not only the need to earn a livelihood, sharp as it was, that was creating such a hurdle of discouragement. What had the months brought otherwise since he had returned from the north? The odes had indeed reawakened some of his confidence, more than he knew at the time. But the really large effort of Hyperion . . . had trailed off into nothing. It, or "some grand Poem," was the essential thing. When he said (June 9) that he had "been very idle lately, very averse to writing," partly because of "the overpowering idea of our dead poets," he was not speaking of the two or three weeks that had passed since the odes of early May. He was thinking of all the months that had passed since the bulk of Hyperion was written.

It's hard to believe that Keats could have overlooked the great odes as an accomplishment. Yet he was lamenting, in his troubles with Hyperion, his inability to be another Milton. Heartbreaking this is and yet, for a poet and a reader, so simple to recognize.