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John Keats 1795-1821

Born London, England

 

Poet

La Belle Dame Sans Merci     

 

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

  Alone and palely loitering;

The sedge is withered from the lake,

  And no birds sing.

 

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

  So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

  And the harvest's done.

 

I see a lilly on thy brow,

 With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheek a fading rose

 Fast withereth too.

 

I met a lady in the meads

 Full beautiful, a faery's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

 And her eyes were wild.

 

I set her on my pacing steed,

  And nothing else saw all day long;

For sideways would she lean, and sing

  A faery's song.

 

I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

  And made sweet moan.

 

She found me roots of relish sweet,

  And honey wild, and manna dew;

And sure in language strange she said,

  I love thee true.

 

She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she gazed and sighed deep,

And there I shut her wild sad eyes--

  So kissed to sleep.

 

And there we slumbered on the moss,

  And there I dreamed, ah woe betide,

The latest dream I ever dreamed

  On the cold hill side.

 

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

Who cried--"La belle Dame sans merci

  Hath thee in thrall!"

 

I saw their starved lips in the gloam

  With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke, and found me here

  On the cold hill side.

 

And this is why I sojourn here

  Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

  And no birds sing.

Ode on a Grecian Urn     

 

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

 

  Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,

 

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

 

  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

 

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape

 

  Of deities or mortals, or of both,

 

   In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

 

 What men or gods are these? what maidens loth?

 

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

 

  What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

 

 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

 

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

 

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

 

  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

 

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

 

  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

 

   Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

 

Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;

 

 She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

 

    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

 

 

 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

 

  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

 

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

 

 For ever piping songs for ever new;

 

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

 

  For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

 

   For ever panting, and for ever young;

 

All breathing human passion far above,

 

 That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

 

    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

 

 

 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

 

  To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

 

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

 

  And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

 

What little town by river or sea shore,

 

  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

 

   Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

 

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

 

 Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

 

    Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

 

 

 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

 

  Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

 

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

 

  Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

 

As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!

 

 When old age shall this generation waste,

 

    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

 

 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'--that is all

 

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

To Haydon with a Sonnet Written on Seeing the Elgin Marbles     

 

Haydon! Forgive me, that I cannot speak

   Definitively on these mighty things;

   Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings—

That what I want I know not where to seek:

And think that I would not be over meek

   In rolling out upfollow'd thunderings,

   Even to the steep of Helciconian springs,

Were I of ample strength for such a freak—

Think too that all those numbers should be thine;

   Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?

For when men star'd at what was most divine

   With browless idiotism—o'erwise phlegm—

Thou hadst beheld the Hesperean shine

   Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.

Bright Star     

 

 

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art--

 

  Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

 

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

 

  Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,

 

The moving waters at their priestlike 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,

 

  Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

 

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

 

  Awake for ever 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 wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

 

So in my veins red life might stream again,

 

And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--

 

I hold it towards you.

 

When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be     

 

 

When I have fears that I may cease to be  

  Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,  

Before high piled 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.