Keats, one of the most lyrical poets, actually considered poets as most 'unpoetical' beings...



Ode to Keat's Idea of Poetical Mind

And so raved one of the finest poet of his times:

A poet has no mind, no soul,
He is nothing, and everything,
He has no self...

His mind enjoys light and shade,
He is sensual and sensuous:
What shocks the virtuous philosopher,
Delights the 'Chemilion' Poet;

It does no harm from its relish
of dark side of things, any more
then its taste for the bright one,
because they both end in speculation.

A poet is most unpoetical
of any thing in existence;
Because he has no identity!
He is continually in for-
and filling some other body...

''The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and
Men and Women, are creatures
Of impulse, and are poetical;
And have about them
an unchangeable attribute;
A poet has none; no identity!"

A poet certainly is the most
Unpoetical of all God's Creatures...

And thus he went on degrading himself,
Degrading his work, disgracing himself;
Using the term 'negative capability':

Capable of being in uncertainties,
Mysteries, doubts without any
Irritable reaching to fact or reason;
Content with half knowledge,
with no thrust in heart's perception...

He was certain of nothing, but
'The holiness of Heart's affections
And the truth of imagination:'
'What imagination seizes as Beauty must be true:'
"Truth is Beauty, Beauty is Truth!'
"Satyam! Shivam! Sundaram!"

Passion as of Love, in all their sublime,
Are creative of essential Beauty;
"My imagination is the Monastery,
And I am the Monk!"
"How beautiful is the air;
How fine is the Season"

"Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run..."

And yet, when he died, her asked that his grave
should not carry his name; the epitaph:
'Here lies One, Whose Name was Writ in Water'
'a Young English Poet, Who, On his death bed,
in the Bitterness of his Heart ,
at the Malicious power of his Enemies,
Desired these Words to be Engraved,
On his Tomb Stone,' that did not bear his Name...

And I often think, how such a fine poet suffered!
Or, may be he was great, because he suffered?
Like the tempering of steel, the fire of his passion,
Gave sheen to his words, meaning to his poems.
Like the breeze in Spring, like the flower in Summer;
Like the fire in Autumn; Like the Snow in Winter...



Author: Zoya Zaidi
Copyright ©: Zoya Zaidi
Aligarh (UP), India
28th July 2014; 12-1AM




Poetry by Zoya Zaidi
Read 1864 times
Written on 2014-09-24 at 11:44

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Zoya Zaidi
Dear Stewart,
While he sat under the tree and wrote in the fading light of the afternoon:

"O, for a draught of vintage!
That had been cooled a long age in
the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and the sun burnt mirth!
O, for a beaker full of warm South,
Full of the true, the bashful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And the puple stained mouth,
That I might drink and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim._"

As if he could foresee his early doom, his flight fro this earth; That is why he chooses to drink from the Hippocerene, the fountain at Mt. Helicon, Formed by the hooves of Pegasus, the White winged horse, a source of inspiration to the poets' Muses'
and at the same time a horse who flies to the heaven and made into to a constellation-Pegasus, by Zeus, the king of all God, who wanted him to bring lightening and thunder from Olympus, which he failed to do...
Hippocerene, the poetic muse, Pegasus the flying white horse, his flight to Heaven, Zeus the God of Gods, turing it into a constellation... are all symbolic of the impending death of the poet... Here lies the genius of the poet who could foresee tomorrow, and yet go on creating masterpieces of poetry...

Thanks for inspiring tis conversation...
Zoya
2014-09-24



My favorite Keats poem is Ode to a Nightingale:

"Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies...."

He had the priceless gift was articulating our fears and sadness of the human condition. He somehow makes us feel a little less alone.
2014-09-24