TO AUTUMN JOHN KEATS JOHN KEATS (1795-1821), an English poet of high rank, was born in London. He was the son of a head hostler in a livery stable. During his early boyhood he was noted for his beauty, his fascinating manners, and his love of fighting. "He would," says one of his schoolmates, "fight any one, morning, noon, and 5 night." But, in spite of his love of battle, his sprightliness, generosity, bravery, beauty, and personal charm made him a favorite in his school. Towards the close of his school course he took to constant reading. His fancy ran towards Grecian classics, history, travel, and fiction. In his sixteenth year he was taken from school and apprenticed to a sur geon. During his period of medical 25 66 study he went once a week to read English classics with his friend, Charles Cowden Clarke. Clarke says of Spenser's Faerie Queene, to which he introduced Keats, He ramped through the scenes of the romance like a young horse turned into a spring meadow." One of his earliest poems was in imitation of Spenser, 30 thePoet's Poet." 10 Before Keats was twenty-two he had given up surgery and had taken literature for his profession. His first book of poems (1817) was a flat failure; his second (1819) called forth savage attacks from the critics of the magazines; his third (1820) made him 5 immortal. It contained such finished poems as his four odes, the Eve of St. Agnes, and others. Before the poet could enjoy the success of this book he was stricken with consumption. Attended by a devoted friend, he went to Italy seeking health, but found only a grave in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. The fame of Keats has steadily grown since his death. His place is certain among the foremost of English poets. He is distinctively the Bard of Beauty; and in him reigns that spirit which links him directly with the classic Greeks. DOLE. Keats had an instinct for fine words, which are in themselves 15 pictures and ideas, and had more of the power of poetic expression than any modern English poet. - LOWELL. 20 25 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twinèd And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 25 10 THE FIGHT WITH THE AUROCHS HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ (1845- ), a Polish novelist, was born just one hundred years after the famous patriot Kosciusko, who resisted Russia's attempt to conquer his native land, and who helped America to strike off British fetters. Sienkiewicz was 5 educated at Warsaw, one of Poland's former capitals, situated almost directly west from Berlin. In 1876 he came to America; then he went to Africa, far into Asia, and all over Europe. But his temporary homes never appealed to him as did his native Warsaw. In three great historic romances he has commemorated the struggle of his country against Sweden. NOTE. Lygia, daughter of a foreign king, and Ursus, a giant slave of her father's household (who are both Christians), are in prison, awaiting punishment by torture for the burning of Rome, 15 of which crime the Christians were accused by Nero. Vinicius, a Roman tribune, who expects to marry Lygia, finds that he must give up his gods and become a Christian. Evening exhibitions, rare up to that period and given only occasionally, became common in Nero's 20 time, both in the circus and amphitheater. Though the people were sated already with blood spilling, still, when the news went forth that the end of the games was approaching, and that the last of the Christians were to die at an evening spectacle, 25 a countless audience assembled in the amphitheater. The Augustians came to a man, for they understood that it would not be a common spectacle; they knew that Cæsar had determined to make for himself a tragedy out of the suffering of Vinicius. Tigellinus had kept secret the kind of punishment 5 intended for the betrothed of the young tribune ; but that merely roused general curiosity. Those who had seen Lygia at the house of Plautius told wonders of her beauty. Uncertainty, waiting, and curiosity had mastered 10 all spectators. Cæsar arrived earlier than usual; and immediately at his coming people whispered that something uncommon would happen, for besides Tigellinus and Vatinius, Cæsar had with him Cassius, a centurion of enormous size and 15 gigantic strength, whom he summoned only when he wished to have a defender at his side. Every eye was turned with strained gaze to the place where Vinicius was sitting. He was exceedingly pale and his forehead was covered with drops 20 of perspiration; he was in as much doubt as were other spectators, but alarmed to the lowest depth of his soul. Petronius knew not what would happen; he was silent, except that, while turning from Nerva, he asked Vinicius whether he was ready for 25 everything, and next, whether he would remain at |