John Keats, C. 1818 (1795-1821)
The genius of Shakespeare was an innate universality—wherefore he had the utmost achievement of human intellect prostrate beneath his indolent and kingly gaze. He could do easily Man’s utmost. His plans of tasks to come were not of this world—if what he purposed to do hereafter would not in his own Idea “answer the aim,” how tremendous must have been his Conception of Ultimates!
Note on Troilus and Cressida, I. iii. Marginalia from the Shakespeare Folio of 1808. (Works, ed. H. Buxton Forman. 1901, iii. p. 254.)
c. 1818
“Sonnet on sitting down to read King Lear once again.”
O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair-plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodising on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit:
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak Forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But, when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phœnix wings to fly at my desire.
Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, edited by Richard Monckton Milnes. Vol. i. p. 96.