and he would shout with merriment.  Beaded bubbles winking at the brim; Throbbing throats’ long, long melodious moan; Curious conscience burrowing like a mole; Emprison her soft hand and let her rave; Men slugs and human serpentry; Bade her steep her hair in weird syrops; Poor weak palsy-stricken churchyard thing; Shut her pure sorrow-drops with glad exclaim—­such lines were to him a constant and exhilarating excitement.  In the very simplicity and unsophistication of his approach to the poet was a virgin naivete of discernment that an Edinburgh Reviewer would rarely attain.  Here, he dimly felt, was the great key

          To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,
          ... aye, to all the mazy world
          Of silvery enchantment.

And in line after line of Endymion, as we pored over them together, he found the clear happiness of a magic that dissolved everything into lightness and freedom.  It is agreeable to remember this man, preparing to be a building contractor, who loved Keats because he made him laugh.  I wonder if the critics have not too insistently persuaded us to read our poet in a black-edged mood?  After all, his nickname was “Junkets.”

* * * * *

So it was that I first, in any transcending sense, fell under the empire of a poet.  Here was an endless fountain of immortal drink:  here was a history potent to send a young mind from its bodily tenement.  The pleasure was too personal to be completely shared; for the most part J——­ and I read not together, but each by each, he sitting in his morris chair by the desk, I sprawled upon his couch, reading, very likely, different poems, but communicating, now and then, a sudden discovery.  Probably I exaggerate the subtlety of our enjoyment, for it is hard to review the unself-scrutinizing moods of freshmanhood.  It would be hard, too, to say which enthusiast had the greater enjoyment:  he, because these glimpses through magic casements made him merry; I, because they made me sad.  Outside, the snow sparkled in the pure winter night; the long lance windows of the college library shone yellow-panelled through the darkness, and there would be the occasional interruption of light-hearted classmates.  How perfectly it all chimed into the mood of St. Agnes’ Eve!  The opening door would bring a gust of lively sound from down the corridor, a swelling jingle of music, shouts from some humorous “rough-house” (probably those sophomores on the floor below)—­

          The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion
          The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet
          Affray his ears, though but in dying tone—­
          The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.