Fancy (1818)

Question 1

Ode to Fancy is dated 1818 in some copies, but was not printed till 1820 The meter and the general tone of the poem show traces of Milton’s poem L’Allegro and II Penseroso, The word ‘fancy’ has been used here in practically the same sense as imagination.

Answer 1

Give a free vent to Fancy because real pleasure is of the imaginary world. Pleasures are soft-lived and disappear like the bubbles of rain.

  Give a free scope to Fancy because the joys of summer, spring, and autumn reach the point of satiety very soon. Sit therefore by the fireside on a winter night and give vent to Imagination.

  Fancy would bring in beauties which cannot be found on the earth. She will give us nothing at one end and the same time the delight of summer, spring, and autumn—the song of the harvesters mixed with the song of birds and the smell of flowers of different seasons at one glance. The field’s mouse and the snake will come out-of their holes while at the same time the birds will lay eggs, bees, swarm, and ripe a corn field.

  Let loose Fancy, for the human pleasures are transitory. Everything pleasurable grows dull after a time. The most beautiful cheek, the sweetest lip, the prettiest face and the most musical voice lose their charm after a time. Therefore let Fancy find for us an ideal beloved as beautiful as Proserpine and as graceful as Hebe. Let Fancy fly away from the cage of the mind and wander at will.

Question 2

Nowhere in Keats is the influence of Milton’s L’Allegro and II Penserow which is evident in this poem.

Answer 2

Keats seems to have caught the very ‘native woodnotes wild’ which Milton gives us in his poems. The same rich profusion of imagery which Milton had is also found here. Elton observes: “The four poems Fancy, Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Lines on the Mermaid Tavern and Robin Hood: printed in the volume of 1820, should be real in the letters in which they were first sent; they are less considered works of skill.”

Question 3

Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind’s cage-door,
She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

Answer 3

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?

Question 4

Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter’s night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw’d,
Fancy, high-commission’d:—send her!

Answer 4

She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn’s wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;

Question 5

Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment, hark!
‘Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum’d lillies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;

Answer 5

Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.

Question 6

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where’s the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz’d at? Where’s the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where’s the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where’s the face
One would meet in every place?
Where’s the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?

Answer 6

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-ey’d as Ceres’ daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;

Question 7

With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe’s, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet
And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh
Of the Fancy’s silken leash;

Answer 7

Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she’ll bring.—
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.