View of Teignmouth in Devonshire

It's a soppy, splashy, muddy countryAnd he is dead sick of stair and entry,Of four walls cuddling round his chair,And breathing full as much water as air.London is so far awayIt dreams, like Latmos. He has sat all dayCopying that cursed Fourth Book and he's struckA snag, and his drying sand won't suck.His mind's like a seed gone to rot with rain,And—Damn it, there's poor Tom coughing again!

Mr. John Keats crams his hat well onOver his ears and walks up and downThe soggy streets of Teignmouth town.Mr. John Keats walks along the streetsOf Teignmouth and asks every soul he meetsIf the sun ever shines in Devonshire,Whether the weather they live with hereIs sometimes what one might really call fair,With the sun in the sky and a brisk to the air?The hat of Mr. John Knute is wet,But his eyes are sharp and ferret-set,He is-seeking the sun with a quicksilver-rod,Noting the veer in a neighbour's nod,Gauging the drift of a neighbour's words'As they might be a flock of South-come birds.

Atkins, the coachman, sets his mugDown on the counter and gives a shrug."'Lor' love you, Sir, if I was to tellThe way I know, you Riche call it smell.I smell it right across the rain,Dry and gentle; it's plain as plainTo-day, I give it a week to run,This rain, and then we'll have the sun,As skittish as a piebald coltAnd sudden as a thunderbolt.All full o' notions, that's the wayOf the sun down here on a Summer's day.Just take my word, before you've said'Jack Robinson,' you'll be hugging the shadeOf every wall, and sweatin' inA steam like my team when I bring 'em in.Well, thank ye, Sir, I don't mind if I do,Brandy neat is my usual brew."

Smell it, could he? The man's insane.Smell the sun through a week of rain!Yet the thought has a kind of glamour to it,A relish of wit, however you view it,A rainbow quip for a rainy day.Mr. Keats, plodding through wet clay,Is aware of a certain direct effectOf joy in his heart. He stands erect.Surely the mist is silveringHis footsteps sound with a livelier ring.If anything glitters in Teignmouth streetsThis afternoon, it is John Keats.

Mr. Bartlett is hurrying byAt a speed which announces that minutes fly,But he pauses briefly just to say"Ah, Mr. Keats, how are you to-day?The sun? Oh, very shortly now.We shall be scorched before we know.Didn't you hear the crows this morning?They always give one plenty of warning.And Mrs. Bartlett talks of house-cleaning,Every married man can read the meaningOf that. When the women begin to clackIt's a surer sign than the almanac.The barometer's risen a point or twoSince yesterday, and this mist is blue,Not grey. I am sorry I cannot stop,But a surgeon is always on the hop,If it's not for one thing, it's another.Of course you're anxious because of your brother.Tell him he'll soon have all the baskingIn sunlight he wants, and just for the asking.But I must go, Mrs. Green's brought to bed—Oh, tell him to keep it off of his head."

Smash! Bang! Mr. Keats. Another chainIs snapped, and there's a gold tint to the rain.

Simmons the barber's as shrunk as a pippinHung on a beam which you might nick a chip in,But never could suck for its juice is all dried.This afternoon he is standing insideHis doorway, just behind his pole,With the mien of a migratory soulPerching an instant before departingOtherwhere, he seems always just startingTo leave, a whirling weather-cockOn the edge of flight, but tied to a block."Good afternoon, Mr. Keats," says he,"Brushing up a bit for good weather, I see.That's the way, young men can tellA season's turn uncommonly well.I've had a full day, the whole town at once.But when I learnt my trade every dunceWho could snap a scissors did not dare hoist a pole.I remember one day when they called out the rollIn the old sixty-third, every man of the lotWas new shaved and powdered and wound, and my potAnd razors all cleaned and I with the rest of themAs spick and as span I could match with the best of them.To cut a round head requires some skill,But nothing to binding a cue, there's a thrillIn a nicely tied cue, I can't see how the girlsCan put up with a man who wears his own curls.But fashion is fashion, the hussy, and I'veBeen her very devoted since I've been alive.And, thank God, she has not yet set her approvalOn beards except in the way of removal.I wish you could feel the delight I receiveWhen my razor slides over your skin, I'd as leaveShave a man in his twenties as go to a play,There's romance in it, Sir, when you see the soap sprayInto bubbles and lather, and your blade cuts a lineAnd lets through the smooth face like a moon, it's so fineThat I dream it sometimes. I've a soul for such fancies,Old barbers like shaving as young girls like dances.And one makes the other. Who would dance a quadrilleWith a rough, stubble chin? That fellow who willIs a hater of women, a thief in the egg,He's just ripe for a ball attached to his leg.Why look, Sir, and tell me if fully two-thirdsOf the unshaven men do not end as jail-birds.Our prisons are full of them, I dare to swearNo convict's without a two-days' growth of hair.I don't hold with this personal shaving, it's sordid.A man should spend well on himself, I wish more did.But no man can cut his own hair, that's a fact,And a hair-cut requires a vast deal of tact.A doctor wants his to look sober and grave,Tradesmen are addicted to a float and a wave,And again, one must know the sort of commodityYour client purveys or there's danger of oddity.A butcher cut like a silk-mercer won't do.And a military man must carry a clueTo his martial exploits in the style of his head,While a poet—you're a poet, Sir, I think I've heard said—Oh, no, Sir, indeed, not a bit more confined,A poet's hair should seem the least trifle inclinedTo a graceful disorder, it should look well when tossed;If you cut it too short this effect is quite lost.Oh, I beg, Mr. Keats, not another least snip.Oh, dear, I do really regret that last clip.I am glad you are pleased, but I don't think a poetShould order his hair so that no one can know it.Still, you look very well, though I should have preferredMore dash and confusion for you. I have heardThat Lord Byron measures his hair with a ruleBefore it is cut, and the least thimblefulToo much taken off sets him all in a taking.I've been told of men who couldn't cut him for shaking.The weather will change in less than a week,I have felt it these last few days on my cheek,My skin always answers to the slightest degreeOf more or less moisture. You'll hardly agreeThat it's dryer and warmer, but my touch is so fineI can tell a South wind when it's over the line.Of course they'll say different, these poor rustic churls,But you be all ready for sparking the girlsBy Tuesday. I'll tip you the wink. We old menRemember our own young days, now and again."

Mr. John Keats has a jaunty swingIn his gait, as he leaves the chatteringOld barber, bowing beside his door.Of course he feels the sort of coreOf golden sun the mist falls through.What is a day, what is two?The sun is coming up from the lineLike a fifty-four with its sails ashine.He feels the flower-scented SouthLike a taste of apricot in his mouth.He thinks of primroses under the hedgeWhere the pathway runs by the sheer cliff edge;Of the downs above where sheep have trodCrooked grey patterns across the sod,And the shadows of turf-walls, cool and still,Mark who owns where all down the hill;Of a long slow ocean, so dazzling brightIts blue is smothered in spangled white.He thinks of queer sea-paths cross-running,Smooth on ripple, of the quiet sunningOf rocks and meadows, of violetsCreeping through grass, of drying nets,Of poetry read with the sun on his bookAnd the freckling of leaves for an overlook.Somebody laughs, somebody calls,"Good-day, Mr. Keats." It drops from the walls,A perfume of laughter which flutters and falls.Lime-tree blossoms by turret stairs,Laughter of flowers no more than theirs,Sunny golden acacia bloomsPeeping into maidens' rooms,Snap a spray and throw it overThe window-ledge to a waiting lover.Mr. Keats comes to a stopFor the girls are over the Bonnet-shopLeaning out like waving rosesOver a gate, most lovely of poses."Stay where you are, Girls," says Mr. Keats,"You pose as the dryads of Teignmouth streets,If Haydon were here he would jot you downIn a jiffy, with your hair wet and blownAnd your little laughing faces like pansies.""La! Mr. Keats, you do have such fancies.""Fancies or no, I believe it clears.Don't you feel the sun on your cheeks, my Dears?Or smell it perhaps? What do you think?There's a hocus-pocus to-day in my inkWhich would not let me write a line,And I itch for the sight of a columbine.Tell me, have you noticed anythingWhich points to a near-by Summering?""Oh yes," said little Number One,"All day I have felt the sun,I saw it on a wheat-straw bonnetI was making, the sun lay upon it,And I thought the muslin blue-bells were sweet.""That," said Mr. Keats, "is proof complete."Said Number Two, "I pricked my thumbThree times running, and fair days comeAfter three pricks, it is always so.Grandmother taught me long ago.""I dreamt last night," said Number Three,"Of a great thick-leaved fuchsia-treeFull of blossoms, purple and red,And the blossoms played music over my headLike bells of glass and copper bellsAnd wind in the trees when the ocean swellsFlood tide over the beach, and shellsGlisten like rubies with the water sheenAnd the sky at the back of the town is green.""You prophesy in a parable;"Said Mr. Keats. "Oh, April-fool!"Cried the girls who were over the Bonnet-shop.And their laughter was sweet as a lollipopTo an urchin's palate in his ears.With a gesture, he brushed aside their jeers."But will it clear?" "Of course it will,"Said the three, "if you patiently wait untilIt does." And they laughed in a rainbow chord,High, and low, and middleward.And Mr. Keats laughed too, though he knewThat they had not said one word in twoOf what he'd imagined they might have said.But who cares a button who bakes the breadSo the bread is baked? And a Bonnet-shopMay be what you please, even Latmos top.So Mr. Keats went blithely on,Quite as if the round sun shone,Back to his copying his Fourth Book.And the girls watched him until a crookIn the street, when he turned it, hid him from sight.Then they noticed that it was growing night.So they put their bonnets away, and the threeLit the lamp and sat down to tea,Immortal for always, because John KeatsHad taken a walk through Teignmouth streets,And stopped when one of them said "Good-day."Clio is odd in her ways, they say.The coachman, the surgeon, the barber, the girls—Islands raised out of darkening swirls.Who else was in Teignmouth that afternoon?Vainly may we importuneThe shadows, only these have come downA century from Teignmouth town.These only from the dark are wonBecause John Keats had a hunger for sun.