1.
Think not of it, sweet one, so;-- Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go Any, any where.2.
Do not look so sad, sweet one,-- Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then, it is gone, O 'twas born to die!3.
Still so pale? then, dearest, weep; Weep,
I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss For thee in after years.4.
Brighter has it left thine eyes Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies Are tenderer still.5.
Yet -- as all things mourn awhile At fleeting blisses,
E'en let us too! but be our dirge A dirge of kisses.'Given by Lord Houghton among the Literary Remains in Volume II of the Life,
Letters &c. (1848), with the date 1817. Hitherto this poem has been headed "On. . . ."; but it is so distinctly an address that 'To' seems to be the right preposition.
It is not stated to whom the verses are addressed.
In Woodhouse's interleaved copy of Endymion is a transcript evidently made from a working draft.
Woodhouse has copied in his careful and minute way the whole manuscript with its erasures, the first of which is a cancelled opening quatrain: --"Think not of it gentle
It is not worth a
Will thine heart less warmly
Thy voice less clear?"Stanza 2 appears to have been originally written with the two final lines,"Shed one drop then only
Sweetly did it die,"which are cancelled in favour of those of the text.'~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed.
H.
Buxton Forman,
Crowell publ. 1895.
