John Keats

“His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;”

“And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.”

“I do think the barsThat kept my spirit in are burst - that IAm sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!How beautiful thou art!”

“No sooner had I stepp'd into these pleasuresThan I began to think of rhymes and measures:The air that floated by me seem'd to say'Write! thou wilt never have a better day.”

“But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wingsThat fill the sky with silver glitterings!”

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

“X.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!” XI.I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. XII.And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.”

“You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving.”

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith 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 shellsWith a sweet kernel; to set budding more,And still more, later flowers for the bees,Until they think warm days will never cease,For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.”

“To feel forever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever-or else swoon in death.”

“When old age shall this generation waste,Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woeThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

“My chest of books divide amongst my friends--”

“Yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From out dark spirits.”

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:Its loveliness increases;It will neverPass into nothingness.”

“Think of my Pleasure in Solitude, in comparison of my commerce with the world - there I am a child - there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance - I give into their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child - Some think me middling, others silly, other foolish - every one thinks he sees my weak side against my will; when in thruth it is with my will - I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so graet a resource. This is one great reason why they like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room, and eclipese from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good Poet - I hope I am not here playing tricks 'to make the angels weep': I think not: for I have not the least contempt for my species; and though it may sound paradoxical: my greatest elevations of Soul leave me every time more humbled - Enough of this - though in your Love for me you will not think it enough.”

“No estoy seguro de nada excepto de la santidad del afecto del Corazón y la verdad de la Imaginación. Aquello que la imaginación capta como Belleza ha de ser verdad, haya existido antes o no.”

“Aí de quando a paixão é simultaneamente modesta e arrebatada!”

“dolci le melodie conosciute, ma più dolci le ignote così voi, tenere cornamuse, il vostro canto non al mero orecchio portate- ma, per questo più care, allo spirito offrite silenziosi concerti."" o grazioso giovane alla fresca ombra mai potrà il tuo canto languire- nè a quei rami venir meno la fronda.""audace amante, mai tu potrai baciarla, seppur vicino alla metae tuttavia non disperare.""ella non può sfiorare e, seppur mai colta, per sempre l'amerai-e lei sarà per sempre bella.”

“Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!The flower will bloom another year.Weep no more! oh, weep no more!Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!For I was taught in ParadiseTo ease my breast of melodies,— Shed no tear.Overhead! look overhead!‘Mong the blossoms white and red—Look up, look up! I flutter nowOn this fresh pomegranate bough.See me! ’tis this silvery billEver cures the good man’s ill.Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!The flower will bloom another year.Adieu, adieu—I fly—adieu!I vanish in the heaven’s blue,— Adieu, adieu!- Fairy Song”

“For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.”

“I must choose between despair and Energy──I choose the latter.”

“Two souls with but a single thought,Two hearts that beat as one!”

“Knowledge enormous makes a god of me.”

“I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my Life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist.”

“If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

“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.- To Sorrow”

“The creature has a purpose, and his eyes are bright with it.”

“I equally dislike the favor of the public with the love of a woman -- they are both a cloying treacle to the wings of independence”

“When I have fears that I may ceace to be, Before my pen has gleaned my teaming brain".”

“Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance".”

“When by my solitary hearth I sit,When no fair dreams before my “mind’s eye” flit,And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.”

“Wherein lies happiness? In that which becksOur ready minds to fellowship divine,A fellowship with essence; till we shine,Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. BeholdThe clear religion of heaven!”

“Robin Hood. To a Friend.No! those days are gone away,And their hours are old and gray,And their minutes buried allUnder the down-trodden pallOfthe leaves of many years:Many times have winter's shears,Frozen North, and chilling East,Sounded tempests to the feastOf the forest's whispering fleeces,Since men knew nor rent nor leases. No, the bugle sounds no more,And the twanging bow no more;Silent is the ivory shrillPast the heath and up the hill;There is no mid-forest laugh,Where lone Echo gives the halfTo some wight, amaz'd to hearJesting, deep in forest drear. On the fairest time of JuneYou may go, with sun or moon,Or the seven stars to light you,Or the polar ray to right you;But you never may beholdLittle John, or Robin bold;Never one, of all the clan,Thrumming on an empty canSome old hunting ditty, whileHe doth his green way beguileTo fair hostess Merriment,Down beside the pasture Trent;For he left the merry tale,Messenger for spicy ale. Gone, the merry morris din;Gone, the song of Gamelyn;Gone, the tough-belted outlawIdling in the "grene shawe";All are gone away and past!And if Robin should be castSudden from his turfed grave,And if Marian should haveOnce again her forest days,She would weep, and he would craze:He would swear, for all his oaks,Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,Have rotted on the briny seas;She would weep that her wild beesSang not to her---strange! that honeyCan't be got without hard money! So it is; yet let us singHonour to the old bow-string!Honour to the bugle-horn!Honour to the woods unshorn!Honour to the Lincoln green!Honour to the archer keen!Honour to tight little John,And the horse he rode upon!Honour to bold Robin Hood,Sleeping in the underwood!Honour to maid Marian,And to all the Sherwood clan!Though their days have hurried byLet us two a burden try.”

“Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.”

“was it a vision or a waking dream? Fled is that music--do I wake or sleep?”

“Dancing music, music sad,Both together, sane and mad…”

“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”

“Scenery is fine -but human nature is finer”

“We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.”

“Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,And fright him as the morning frightens night!”

“I see a lily on thy brow,With anguish moist and fever dew;And on thy cheek a fading roseFast withereth too.”

“Then on the shoreOf the wide world I stand alone, and thinkTill love and fame to nothingness do sink.”

“Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.”

“I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.”

“Already with thee! tender is the night. . .But here there is no light. . .”

“I wish to believe in immortality-I wish to live with you forever.”

“How sad is it when a luxurious imagination is obliged in self defense to deaden its delicacy in vulgarity, and riot in things attainable that it may not have leisure to go mad after things which are not.”

“So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.”

“The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.”

“There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in the rubbish.”