Fragment Of An Ode To Maia. Written On May Day 1818
Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O give me their old vigour! and unheard
Save of the quiet primrose, and the span
Of heaven, and few ears,
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
poem by John Keats
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Lines Rhymed In A Letter From Oxford
I.
The Gothic looks solemn,
The plain Doric column
Supports an old Bishop and Crosier;
The mouldering arch,
Shaded o'er by a larch
Stands next door to Wilson the Hosier.
II.
Vice--that is, by turns,--
O'er pale faces mourns
The black tassell'd trencher and common hat;
The Chantry boy sings,
The Steeple-bell rings,
And as for the Chancellor--dominat.
III.
There are plenty of trees,
And plenty of ease,
And plenty of fat deer for Parsons;
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poem by John Keats
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Translated From A Sonnet Of Ronsard
Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies
For more adornment a full thousand years;
She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dyes,
And shap'd and tinted her above all Peers:
Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings,
And underneath their shadow fill'd her eyes
With such a richness that the cloudy Kings
Of high Olympus utter'd slavish sighs.
When from the Heavens I saw her first descend
My heart took fire, and only burning pains
They were my pleasures -- they my Life's sad end;
Love pour'd her beauty into my warm veins...
poem by John Keats
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Lines from Endymion
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loviliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondance, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o`er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, inspite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
poem by John Keats
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Think Of It Not, Sweet One
THINK not of it, sweet one, so;---
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any---anywhere.
Do not lool so sad, sweet one,---
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then,---it is gone---
O 'twas born to die!
Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.
Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.
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poem by John Keats
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To -------.
1.
Think not of it, sweet one, so;--
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any, any where.
2.
Do not look so sad, sweet one,--
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then, it is gone,
O 'twas born to die!
3.
Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.
4.
Brighter has it left thine eyes
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poem by John Keats
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On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time
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.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time -with a billowy main,
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.
poem by John Keats
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On Receiving A Laurel Crown From Leigh Hunt
MINUTES are flying swiftly, and as yet
Nothing unearthly has enticed my brain
Into a delphic Labyrinth I would fain
Catch an unmortal thought to pay the debt
I owe to the kind Poet who has set
Upon my ambitious head a glorious gain.
Two bending laurel Sprigs 'tis nearly pain
To be conscious of such a Coronet.
Still time is fleeting, and no dream arises
Gorgeous as I would have it only I see
A Trampling down of what the world most prizes
Turbans and Crowns, and blank regality;
And then I run into most wild surmises
Of all the many glories that may be.
poem by John Keats
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Written Before Re-Reading King Lear
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute.
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the old oak Forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the Fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.
poem by John Keats
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Dedication To Leigh Hunt, Esq.
Glory and loveliness have pass'd away;
For if we wander out in early morn,
No wreathed incense do we see upborne
Into the east, to meet the smiling day:
No crowd of nymphs soft voic'd and young, and gay,
In woven baskets bringing ears of corn,
Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn
The shrine of Flora in her early May.
But there are left delights as high as these,
And I shall ever bless my destiny,
That in a time, when under pleasant trees
Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free,
A leafy luxury, seeing I could please
With these poor offerings, a man like thee.
poem by John Keats
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