The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats

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The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters - John  Keats


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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.

      Sonnet Written in Answer to a Sonnet Ending thus:

       Table of Contents

      Dark eyes are dearer far

       Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell!

       J. H. Reynolds

      Blue! ’Tis the life of heaven, - the domain

       Of Cynthia, - the wide palace of the sun, -

       The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, -

       The bosomer of clouds, gold, grey and dun.

       Blue! Tis the life of waters: - Ocean

       And all its vassal streams, pools numberless,

       May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can

       Subside, if not to dark blue nativeness.

       Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green,

       Married to green in all the sweetest flowers, - Forget-me-not, - the bluebell, - and, that queen

       Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers

       Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great,

       When in an Eye thou art, alive with fate!

      Sonnet: After dark vapours have oppress’d our plains

       Table of Contents

      After dark vapours have oppress’d 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, relieved of 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 smiling infant’s breath -

       The gradual sand that through an hourglass runs -

       A woodland rivulet - a Poet’s death.

      Sonnet to John Hamilton Reynolds

       Table of Contents

      O that a week could be an age, and we

       Felt parting and warm meeting every week,

       Then one poor year a thousand years would be,

       The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:

       So could we live long life in little space,

       So time itself would be annihilate,

       So a day’s journey in oblivious haze

       To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate.

       O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!

       To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind,

       And keep our souls in one eternal pant!

       This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught

       Me how to harbour such a happy thought.

      Sonnet on Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

       Table of Contents

      O golden tongued Romance, with serene lute!

       Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!

       Leave melodising on this wintry day,

       Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:

       Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute

       Betwixt damnation and impassion’d 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.

      Sonnet: Before he went to feed with owls and bats

       Table of Contents

      Before he went to feed with owls and bats

       Nebuchadnezzar had an ugly dream,

       Worse than an hus’if s when she thinks her cream

       Made a naumachia for mice and rats.

       So scared, he sent for that ‘Good King of Cats’

       Young Daniel, who soon did pluck away the beam

       From out his eye, and said he did not deem

       The sceptre worth a straw - his cushions old door-mats.

       A horrid nightmare similar somewhat

       Of late has haunted a most motley crew, Most loggerheads and chapmen - we are told

       That any Daniel tho’ he be a sot

       Can make the lying lips turn pale of hue

       By belching out ‘ye are that head of gold.’

      Sonnet Written in the Cottage where Burns was Born

       Table of Contents

      This mortal body of a thousand days

       Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,

       Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,

       Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!

       My pulse is warm with thine own barley-bree,

       My head is light with pledging a great soul,

       My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,

       Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;

       Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,

       Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find The meadow thou hast tramped o’er and o’er, -

       Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind, -

       Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name, -

       O smile among the shades, for this is fame!


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