If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd

John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.

* * *

I am here sitting here, in my little doll-house apartment, on the second floor of an elegant Victorian overlooking the sea, mooning over the memory of the half-imaginary garden beside my shabby little cape, with its ugly vinyl siding and its view of other people's backyards. And for some reason, the phantom of John Keats has floated in through the closed window . . . John Keats, that stumpy little commoner, so deeply enraptured with the earth and the words. He was no gardener, of course; he was a city boy through and through. Yet his eye caressed the world. He was always attuned to "pained loveliness." The sonnet I just shared is not one of his best, but I like it anyway: I like that it shows me how his mind was working, how he was thinking his way through the task of making a poem. I am all about making these days.

* * *

You probably won't hear from me for a day or two, as I'll be on the road, taking the boy back to college. But I will try to remember today to take some pictures of the garden-to-be . . . the first draft, ripe for revision. I'm not a very good photographer, and mostly all you'll see is dirt. But dirt has its beauties.