Answer To A Sonnet Ending Thus: --

By John Keats

Dark eyes are dearer far
Than those that made the hyacinthine bell.
By J. H. Reynolds

Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven, -- the domain
Of Cynthia, -- the wide palace of the sun, --
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, --
The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters -- ocean
And all its vassal streams: pools numberless
May range, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness.
Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green,
Married to green in all the sweetest flowers --
Forget-me-not, -- the blue-bell, -- and, that queen
Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers
Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great,
When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!

Feb. 1818.