John Keats

"I stood tip-toe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn."

"And then there crept A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves."

"Open afresh your round of starry folds, Ye ardent marigolds!"

"Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies ’gainst the streams, To taste the luxury of sunny beams Temper’d with coolness."

"Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings."

"Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain, Full of sweet desolation—balmy pain."

"Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain, Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies."

"To one who has been long in city pent, ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven."

"E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear That falls through the clear ether silently."

"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."

"And other spirits there are standing apart Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings in a distant mart? Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb."

"The poetry of earth is never dead."

"Stop and consider! life is but a day; A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way From a tree's summit."

"O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed."

"A drainless shower Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; ’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm."

"But strength alone though of the Muses born Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man."

"The sweet converse of an innocent mind."

"There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object."

"The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thicksighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness 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."

"In spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits."

"The grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink."

"Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, They alway must be with us, or we die."

"O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth!"

"Time, that aged nurse, Rocked me to patience."

"Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz'd, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!"

"Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot; Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept. Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state Is like a floating spirit's. But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity: the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity."

"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."

"Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain Clings cruelly to us."

"He ne'er is crown'd With immortality, who fears to follow Where airy voices lead."

"'Tis the pest Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest."

"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: I would deceive her And so leave her, But ah! she is so constant and so kind."

"So many, and so many, and such glee."

"O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing."

"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 made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan."

"I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried- "La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!""

"Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud."

"That large utterance of the early gods!"

"As when, upon a tranced summer-night, Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods, Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, Save from one gradual solitary gust Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, As if the ebbing air had but one wave."

"The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled."

"Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain; O folly! for to bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty Mark well."

"Knowledge enormous makes a God of me."

"And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?"

"Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is — Love, forgive us! — cinders, ashes, dust."

"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, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade."

"“For cruel ’tis,” said she, “To steal my Basil-pot away from me.”"

"So let me be thy choir, and make a moan Upon the midnight hours"

"And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!"

"Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home."