To G.A.W. / John Keats

Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance!

In what diviner moments of the day

Art thou most lovely? -when gone far astray

Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance,

Or when serenely wandering in a trance

Of sober thought? Or when starting away,

With careless robe to meet the morning ray,

Thou sparest the flowers in thy mazy dance?

To Fanny / John Keats

I cry your mercy -pity -love! -aye, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Unmasked, and being seen -without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole, -all -all -be mine!

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

Of love, your kiss, -those hands, those eyes divine,

That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast, - 

To Charles Cowden Clarke / John Keats

Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning,

And with proud breast his own white shadow crowning;

He slants his neck beneath the waters bright

So silently, it seems a beam of light

Come from the galaxy: anon he sports,--

With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts,

Or ruffles all the surface of the lake

In striving from its crystal face to take

Some diamond water drops, and them to treasure

In milky nest, and sip them off at leisure.

To Autumn / John Keats

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-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

To Ailsa Rock / John Keats

Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid,

Give answer by thy voice -the sea-fowls' screams!

When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?

When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?

How long is't since the mighty Power bid

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams - 

Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams - 

Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid!

Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep.

To a Young Lady Who Sent Me a Laurel Crown / John Keats

Fresh morning gusts have blown away all fear

From my glad bosom, -now from gloominess

I mount for ever -not an atom less

Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.

No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press

Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless

By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.

To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses / John Keats

As late I rambled in the happy fields,

What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew

From his lush clover covert; -when anew

Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;

I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,

A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw

Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew

As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.

To **** / John Keats

Hadst thou liv'd in days of old,

O what wonders had been told

Of thy lively countenance,

And thy humid eyes that dance

In the midst of their own brightness;

In the very fane of lightness.

Over which thine eyebrows, leaning,

Picture out each lovely meaning:

To / John Keats

Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs

Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell,

Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well

Would passion arm me for the enterprise:

But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies;

No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell;

I am no happy shepherd of the dell

Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes.

The Human Seasons / John Keats

Four seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of Man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honeyed cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

The Eve of St. Agnes / John Keats

I.

St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold: Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told His rosary, and while his frosted breath, Like pious incense from a censer old, Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death, Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

The Day is Gone, and all its Sweets are Gone / John Keats

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone,

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang'rous waist!

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise -

Specimen of an Induction to a Poem / John Keats

Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;

For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye.

Not like the formal crest of latter days:

But bending in a thousand graceful ways;

So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand,

Or e'en the touch of Archimago's wand,

Could charm them into such an attitude.

Sleep and Poetry / John Keats

"As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete

Was unto me, but why that I ne might

Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight

[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese

Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese."

CHAUCER.

What is more gentle than a wind in summer?

What is more soothing than the pretty hummer

That stays one moment in an open flower,

And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?

Robin Hood / John Keats

No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years: Many times have winter's shears, Frozen North, and chilling East, Sounded tempests to the feast Of the forest's whispering fleeces, Since men knew nor rent nor leases. 10

On the Sea / John Keats

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell

Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell

Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.

Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell,

When last the winds of heaven were unbound.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket / John Keats

The poetry of earth is never dead:

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 Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time / John Keats

My spirit is too weak; mortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,

And each imagined pinnacle and steep

Of godlike hardship tells me I must die

Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.

Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep

Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.

On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour / John Keats

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean

On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far;

Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,

Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen

The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:

And let there glide by many a pearly car

Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,

And half-discovered wings, and glances keen.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer / John Keats

Much have I travelled 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-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: