This week’s poem is an antidote to the loveliness of last week’s Valentine’s Day poem: it is “All These Are Vile” by John Keats.
Tea with a maiden lady, a cursed lot
John Keats (1795—1821)
Of worthy poems with the author near,
Poem 361. All These Are Vile
The House of Mourning written by Mr Scott,
A sermon at the Magdalen, a tear
Dropped on a greasy novel, want of cheer
After a walk uphill to a friend’s cot,
Tea with a maiden lady, a cursed lot
Of worthy poems with the author near,
A patron lord, a drunkenness from beer,
Haydon’s great picture, a cold coffee pot
At midnight when the muse is ripe for labour,
The voice of Mr Coleridge, a French bonnet
Before you in the pit, a pipe and tabour,
A damned inseparable flute and neighbour —
All these are vile. But viler Wordsworth’s sonnet
On Dover. Dover! Who could write upon it?
Keats is generally associated with the poetry of praise—Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn and so on but I discovered this sonnet in “The Nation’s Favourite Comic Poems” and enjoyed it because it is so uncharacteristic: Keats apparently in a somewhat dyspeptic mood, casting shade on all the things he finds hateful.
The House of Mourning is a rather maudlin poem about a dead child, written by John Scott, the first editor of the London Magazine who died in 1821 after engaging in a duel.
The Magdalen was the Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes, founded in 1758 where women worked to provide financial support for the hospital and also for themselves; the hospital was also treated as a tourist attraction for the upper classes. The Magdalene Laundries have a vile history of their own, though it is unclear to me whether Keats’ judgement is based on the purported morals of the inmates or the way in which they were treated.
Keats then turns his attention to “a tear/Dropped on a greasy novel”, perhaps suggesting that weeping over cheap fiction is a worthless activity as disappointing as finding no welcome at a friend’s house after a stiff walk. Rather contrarily, he goes on to criticise “Tea with a maiden lady”—perhaps the wrong kind of welcome?
One thing he probably dreaded was the inevitable request to read and comment on another’s poetry—“a cursed lot/Of worthy poems with the author near”—I think we can sympathize with his sinking heart on that score, and also with his desire to avoid “patron lords” who perhaps traded too much on their association with the poet.
His dislike of beer is ambiguous: is he critical of the beer itself, or perhaps it is the aftereffects of overindulgence that he disparages?
Haydon’s great picture is, I suspect Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, as it is the only major work he painted before Keats’ death in 1821. Keats was apparently not a fan of the painting but he admired Haydon, named him in several poems and lent him money which he could ill afford.
Keats, it seems, liked to write late at night “when the muse is ripe for labour” fuelled by a pot of hot coffee—the prospect of the same pot filled with tepid or cold coffee fills him with disgust, as does “the voice of Mr Coleridge” although Keats had spent time with Coleridge and admired him.
His next grumble is against women: specifically those who wear outsize and impractical headgear to the theatre, making it impossible to see the stage; these he classes with the pipe, tabour and flute: musical instruments with which he has no patience. Nor is he fond of neighbours who outstay their welcome!
All the preceding things are vile, he concludes, but they’re not as bad as “Wordsworth’s sonnet/On Dover.” This may refer to “At Dover” or “Composed in the Valley Near Dover, On the Day of Landing”. Keats’ primary criticism seems to be not the poem itself but its subject: “Dover! Who could write upon it?”
Although the tone is severely critical, the poem is likely rather tongue in cheek as Keats admired Haydon and Coleridge and had met Wordsworth.
I like it because it is quite over the top, and an uncharacteristic diatribe from a poet we tend to think of as a tragic figure and one of the great Romantic figures along with Byron and Shelley.
Like last week’s choice, I have been unable to find a performance of this poem online.