Quotes
Authors -- Keats
Oh for a life of sensations rather than thoughts.
A proverb is no proverb to you until life has illustrated it.
There is a budding morrow in midnight.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness. -- Endymion. Book i.
He ne'er is crown'd
With immortality, who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead. -- Endymion. Book ii.
To sorrow
I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind. -- Endymion. Book iv.
So many, and so many, and such glee. -- Endymion. Book iv.
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is--Love, forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust. -- Lamia. Part ii.
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. -- Lamia. Part ii.
Music's golden tongue
Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 3.
The silver snarling trumpets 'gan to chide. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 4.
Asleep in lap of legends old. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 15.
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 16.
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 18.
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 27.
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon. -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 30.
He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute,
In Provence call'd "La belle dame sans mercy." -- The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 33.
That large utterance of the early gods! -- Hyperion. Book i.
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir. -- Hyperion. Book i.
The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled. -- Hyperion. Book ii.
Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth. -- Ode to a Nightingale.
The self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. -- Ode to a Nightingale.
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time. -- Ode on a Grecian Urn.
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. -- Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Thou, silent form, doth tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! -- Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. -- Ode on a Grecian Urn.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity. -- Stanzas.
Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings? -- Addressed to Haydon. Sonnet x.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. -- On first looking into Chapman's Homer.
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently. -- To One who has been long in City pent.
The poetry of earth is never dead. -- On the Grasshopper and Cricket.
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation--balmy pain. -- I stood tip-toe upon a little Hill.
There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. -- Preface to Endymion.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too? -- Ode to the fair Maid of the Inn.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shine. -- Ode on Melancholy. Stanza 3.
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns. -- Sonnet. On the Sea.
The sweet converse of an innocent mind. -- Sonnet. To Solitude.
She no tear--O shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more--O weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core. -- Faery Song 1.
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast. -- Sonnet The Day is gone.
Mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep. -- Sonnet. On seeing the Elgin Marbles.
Bright star, would I were stedfast 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. -- Sonnet.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water. -- NOTESFOLLOW
Note 1.See Chapman, Quotation 20.
Among the many things he has requested of me to-night, this is the principal,--that on his gravestone shall be this inscription.--Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton): Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. Letter to Severn, vol. ii. p. 91. -- end
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest The silver clouds. - John Keats, -- Posthumous Poems--Sonnets--Oh! How I Love on a Fair Summer's Eve
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave a paradise for a sect.
Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance.
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time. -- Stanzas
And shade the violets, That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. -- I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon. -- The Eve of St. Agnes (st. 30)
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the grasshopper's--he takes the lead In summer luxury--he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. -- On the Grasshopper and Cricket
The poetry of the earth is never dead.
Each Bond-street buck conceits, unhappy elf; He shows his clothes! alas! he shows himself. O that they knew, these overdrest self-lovers, What hides the body oft the mind discovers. -- Epigrams--Clothes
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core. -- To Autumn
'Tis the witching hour of night, Orbed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten, Seeming with bright eyes to listen- For what listen they? -- A Prophecy (l. 1)
Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing, But divine melodious truth. -- Ode--Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep? -- To a Nightingale
Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown. -- To a Nightingale
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a stir. -- Hyperion (bk. I, l. 73)
Love is my religion - I could die for it.
Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings? -- Addressed to Haydon (sonnet X)
No, no, I'm sure, My restless spirit never could endure To brood so long upon one luxury, Unless it did, though fearfully, espy A hope beyond the shadow of a dream. -- Endymion (bk. I)
He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead. -- Endymion (bk. II)
I long to believe in immortality. . . . If I am destined to be happy with you here--how short is the longest life. I wish to believe in immortality--I wish to live with you forever. -- Letter to Fanny Brawne (XXXVI)
St Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold. -- The Eve of St. Agnes
Dry your eyes--O dry your eyes, For I was taught in Paradise To ease my breast of melodies. -- Fairy Song
Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? -- Mermaid Tavern
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven; We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings. -- Lamia (pt. II, l. 231)
You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I endeavored often "to reason against the reasons of my Love." -- Letters to Fanny Braune (VIII)
On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence. -- On the Grasshopper and Cricket
There is a budding morrow in midnight. -- Sonnet--Standing alone in giant Ignorance
Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy? -- Stanzas--In Drear Nighted December
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, In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell. -- Sonnet--O Solitude! If I must With Thee Dwell
He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute, In Provence call'd, "La belle dame sans merci." -- The Eve of St. Agnes (st. 33), "La Belle Dame, sans Merci" is a poem written by Alain Chartier
O, sorrow! Why dost borrow Heart's lightness from the merriment of May? -- Endymion (bk. IV)
To Sorrow I bade good-morrow, And though to leave her far away behind; But cheerly, cheerly, She loves me dearly: She is so constant to me, and so kind. -- Endymion (bk. IV)
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. -- Hyperion (bk. I, l. 36)
The poppies hung Dew-dabbed on their stalks. -- Endymion (bk. I, l. 681)
Through the dancing poppies stole A breeze most softly lulling to my soul. -- Endymion (bk. I, l. 681)
