John Keats
After Dark
Vapors
After dark vapors have oppressed our
plains
For a long dreary season, comes a
day
Born of the gentle South, and clears
away
From the sick heavens all unseemly
stains.
The anxious month, relieving from
its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel
of May,
The eyelids with the passing
coolness play,
Like rose leaves with the drip of
summer rains.
The calmest thoughts come round us
-- as of leaves
Budding -- fruit ripening in
stillness -- autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet
sheaves --
Sweet Sappho's cheek -- a sleeping
infant's breath --
The gradual sand that through an
hourglass runs --
A woodland rivulet -- a poet's
death.
Bright Star
Bright star! would I were steadfast
as thou art --
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the
night
And watching, with eternal lids
apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless
eremite,
The moving waters at their
priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human
shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen
mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the
moors --
No -- yet still steadfast, still
unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's
ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and
swell,
Awake forever in a sweet
unrest,
Still, still to hear her
tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -- or else swoon to
death.
This Living
Hand
This living hand, now warm and
capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it
were cold
And in the icy silence of the
tomb.
So haunt thy days and chill thy
dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart
dry of blood,
So in my veins red life might stream
again,
And thou be conscience-calm'd. See,
here it is -
I hold it towards you.
To ----
What can I do to drive away
Remembrance from my eyes? for they
have seen,
Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant
queen!
Touch has a memory. O say, love,
say,
What can I do to kill it and be
free
In my old liberty?
When every fair one that I saw was
fair,
Enough to catch me in but half a
snare,
Not keep me there:
When, howe'er poor or particolored
things,
My muse had wings,
And ever ready was to take her
course
Whither I bent her force,
Unintellectual, yet divine to me;
--
Divine, I say! -- What seabird o'er
the sea
Is a philosopher the while he goes
Winging along where the great water
throes?
How shall I do
To get anew
Those molted feathers, and so mount
once more
Above, above
The reach of fluttering Love,
And make him cower lowly while i
soar?
Shall I gulp wine? No, that is
vulgarism,
A heresy and schism,
Foisted into the canon law of love;
--
No -- wine is only sweet to happy
men;
More dismal cares
Seize on me unawares --
Where shall I learn to get my peace
again?
To banish thoughts of that most
hateful land,
Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked
strand
Where they were wrecked and live a
wrecked life;
That monstrous region, whose dull
rivers pour,
Ever from their sordid urns unto the
shore,
Unowned of any weedy-haired
gods;
Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold
scourging rods,
Iced in the great lakes, to afflict
mankind;
Whose rank-grown forests, frosted,
black, and blind,
Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh
herbaged meads
Make lean and lank the starved ox
while he feeds;
There bad flowers have no scent,
birds no sweet song,
And great unerring nature once seems
wrong.
O, for some sunny spell
To dissipate the shadows of this
hell!
Say they are gone -- with the new
dawning light
Steps forth my lady bright!
O, let me once more rest
My soul upon that dazzling
breast!
Let once again these aching arms be
placed,
The tender gaolers of thy
waist!
And let me feel that warm breath
here and there
To spread a rapture in my very hair
--
O, the sweetness of the pain!
Give me those lips again!
Enough! Enough! it is enough for
me
To dream of thee!
To Sleep
O soft embalmer of the still
midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and
benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered
from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness
divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please
thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my
willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy
throws
Around my bed its lulling
charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will
shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many
woes;
Save me from curious conscience,
that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing
like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled
wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my
soul.
WHEN I HAVE FEARS
When I have fears that I may cease
to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming
brain,
Before high pilèd books, in
charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the
full-ripen'd grain ;
When I behold, upon the night's
starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high
romance,
And think that I may never live to
trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand
of chance ;
And when I feel, fair creature of an
hour !
That I shall never look upon thee
more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love ! - then on the
shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and
think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do
sink.
TO SOLITUDE
O SOLITUDE! If I must with thee
dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; - climb with me
the steep,
Nature's Observatory - whence the
dell,
Its flowery slopes - its rivers
crystal swell,
May seem a span: let me thy vigils
keep
'Mongst boughs pavilioned; where the
Deer's swift leap
Startles the wild Bee from the
Fox-glove bell.
Ah! fain would I frequent such
scenes with thee;
But the sweet converse of an
innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts
refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure
must be
Almost the highest bliss of human
kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred
spirits flee.
About me Words from the
heart My
beautiful boy The
kindest of souls
Words by my favourite
writers Random
pictures