John Keats (1795-1821)

Endymion

• tale of Endymion, the shepherd who falls in love with Selene, the moon goddess
• starts by painting a rustic scene of trees, rivers, herders and sheep who gather around an alter and pray to Pan
• the elder men sit and talk about how life is in Elysium
• Endymion doesn't participate and tells his sister Peona of his encounter with Selene, and how much he loved her

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

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...

"The Eve of St. Agnes"

• main characters are Madeline and Porphyro
• Porhpyro sings to her "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
• based on superstition that a woman would see her future husband if she performed a certain ritual on the eve of St. Agnes - if she were to go to bed without looking behind her back, her future partner would appear in a dream, eat with her and kiss her

St. Agne's 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.

"Isabella"

• an adoption of the story of the "Pot of Basil" in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron

Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!

Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!

They could not in the self-same mansion dwell

Without some stir of heart, some malady;

They could not sit at meals but feel how well

It soothed each to be the other by;

They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep

But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

"La Belle Dame Sans Merci"

O what can ail thee Knight at arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered 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 wil--

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--...

Theory from the Letters

• Keats garnered some celebrity for ideas he expressed in his letters
• "Negative Capability"
• "I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, and at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."
• "The Mansion of Many Apartments"
• "I compare human life to a large Mansion of Many Apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors the rest being as yet shut upon me - The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think - We remain there a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance, we care not to hasten to it; but are at length imperceptibly impelled by awakening of the thinking principle - within - us -we no sooner get into the second Chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of Maiden-Thought, then we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere, we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight."

"Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
      Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
      A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme :
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
      Of deities or mortals, or of both,
            In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these ? What maidens loth?
      What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape?
            What pipes and timbrels ? What wild ecstasy?

2.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
      Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on :
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
      Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
      Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
            Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve;
      She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
            For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

3.
Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed
      Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
      For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love ! more happy, happy love!
      For every warm and still to be enjoy’d,
            For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
      That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
            A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

4.
Who are those coming to the sacrifice?
      To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
      And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
      Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
            Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
      Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
            Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

5.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
      Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
      Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral!
      When old age shall this generation waste,
            Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
      ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all
            Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

"Ode on Melancholy"

1.
No, no go not to Lethe, neither twist
      Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
      By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
      Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
            Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
      For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
            And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

2.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
      Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
      And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
      Or on the rainbow of the salt sand wave,
            Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
      Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
            And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

3.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
      And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu ; and aching Pleasure nigh,
      Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
      Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
            Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
      His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
            And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

"On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer"

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 5
     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; 10
   Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
     He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
   Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
     Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

"Ode to Autumn"

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-eaves 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,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

"Ode to a Nightingale"

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
   My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
   One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
   But being too happy in thy happiness, -
     That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
                           In some melodious plot
   Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
     Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2
O for a draught of vintage ! that hath been
   Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
   Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth !
O for a beaker full of the warm South !
   Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
     With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
                           And purple-stainèd mouth ;
   That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
     And with thee fade away into the forest dim :

3
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
   What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
   Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
   Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ;
     Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
                           And leaden-eyed despairs ;
   Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
     Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

4
Away ! away! for I will fly to thee,
   Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
   Though the dull brain perplexes and retards :
Already with thee ! tender is the night,
   And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
     Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays ;
                           But here there is no light,
   Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown,
     Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
   Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
   Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ;
   White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ;
     Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves ;
                           And mid-May's eldest child,
   The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
     The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6
Darkling I listen ; and for many a time
   I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
   To take into the air my quiet breath ;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
   To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
     While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
                           In such an ecstasy !
   Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
     To thy high requiem become a sod.

7
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
   No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
   In ancient days by emperor and clown :
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
   Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
     She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;
                           The same that oft-times hath
   Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
      Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

8
Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell
   To toll me back from thee to my sole self !
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well
   As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades
   Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
     Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep
                           In the next valley-glades :
   Was it a vision, or a waking dream ?
      Fled is that music : - do I wake or sleep?