object:1.jk - Sonnet. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chaind
author class:John Keats
book class:Keats - Poems
subject class:Poetry
class:chapter
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.
Form: Sonnet (abcabdcabcdede).
(line 2): Andromeda: Ethiopian princess who was rescued from a monster by Perseus, her husband-to-be.
(line 11): Midas: Phrygian king who wished for gold, more than anything, and was granted the ambiguous gift of turning everything he touched into gold.
'This experiment in sonnet metre appears to have been written on or very shortly before the 3rd of May 1819, and was first given in the Life, Letters &c. (1848). It was the last poem transcribed in the journal letter to George Keats and his wife begun on the 14th of February and ended on the 3rd of May, and stood immediately over the words "This is the third of May," and under the following paragraph --
"I have been endeavouring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have. The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes; the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect. I do not pretend to have succeeded. It will explain itself."
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