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Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats (Modern Library Classics) by John Keats
'I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death,' John Keats soberly prophesied in 1818 as he started writing the blankverse epic Hyperion. Today he endures as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses but suffered a tragic early death. Edmund Wilson counted him as 'one of the half dozen greatest English writers,' and T. S. Eliot has paid tribute to the Shakespearean quality of Keats's greatness. Indeed, his work has survived better than that of any of his contemporaries the devaluation of Romantic poetry that began early in this century. This Modern Library edition contains all of Keats's magnificent 'Lamia,' 'Isabella,' and 'The Eve of St. Agnes'; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romance Endymion; and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great. Presented as well are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary 'The Eve of Saint Mark' and the great 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language. 'No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness,' said Matthew Arnold. 'In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare.'
Unknown Binding
First published October 28, 1975
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About the author
John Keats
1,375 books2,498 followersRich melodic works in classical imagery of British poet John Keats include "
The Eve of Saint Agnes
," "
Ode on a Grecian Urn
," and "
To Autumn
," all in 1819.
Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley include "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.
Work of the principal of the Romantic movement of England received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day during his short life. He nevertheless posthumously immensely influenced poets, such as Alfred Tennyson. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize poetry, including a series of odes, masterpieces of Keats among the most popular poems in English literature. Most celebrated letters of Keats expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability."
Wikipedia page of the author
Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley include "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.
Work of the principal of the Romantic movement of England received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day during his short life. He nevertheless posthumously immensely influenced poets, such as Alfred Tennyson. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize poetry, including a series of odes, masterpieces of Keats among the most popular poems in English literature. Most celebrated letters of Keats expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability."
Wikipedia page of the author
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
February 13, 2012
The guy had talent but reading his stuff is like being locked up in that Hansel and Gretel house made of confectionery. You get to feeling ill. In fact you need a bucket quite soon. There should be a Marathon Keats Reading Competition to see who can read the most pages of the Complete Poems without losing their lunch. I bet if Keats had been around in the 1970s he'd have been a Genesis fan - and then a Peter Gabriel fan! I can imagine him earnestly glomming onto "Selling England By The Pound" or some such prog rock shite on his Keatsian headphones (ordinary headphones garlanded with anemones). And he would have wanted to write the lyrics for the next one. Yes, that's right, he would have been a lyricist for a prog band - like Yes or Marillion or Van Der Graaf Generator! Ha ha ha! Tough luck, John, you missed a really modest career as a prog rock lyricist. The girls would have loved your soft curls and your early death would have gone down a treat.
October 17, 2009
Keats.
John Keats.
I've been a big Shelley fan, and in a different way, Byron... but never tackled Keats before. As a non-English major, I'm having to google a lot of the references (21st Century Keats), but god is it gorgeous. Okay, I'll cop to it, I saw Bright Star yesterday--came right home and took this barely-cracked book off my shelf and stuck my nose in it for the rest of the night. My mind's jaw dropped open in admiration.
John Keats.
I've been a big Shelley fan, and in a different way, Byron... but never tackled Keats before. As a non-English major, I'm having to google a lot of the references (21st Century Keats), but god is it gorgeous. Okay, I'll cop to it, I saw Bright Star yesterday--came right home and took this barely-cracked book off my shelf and stuck my nose in it for the rest of the night. My mind's jaw dropped open in admiration.
March 7, 2014
John Keats..no review needed here. just love ♥
November 7, 2021
kills me
August 21, 2015
Portals to Poetry--
In the introduction to this book, the poet Edward Hirsch writes, "John Keats's poems and letters were for me ... the portals of poetry itself." I won't go that far (my portals were the poems of Lorca), but they were definitely portals to metered and rhymed poetry for me. It was around the beginning of this book that I got into writing poetry in iambic meter, and this book really trained my ear and schooled me in iambic pentameter. Reading a book on poetic rhythm and Gerard Manley Hopkin's stress verse alongside this really helped, too, as the former gave me a theoretical understanding of the meter (esp. the notions of beats, inversions, and elisions) and the latter threw Keats's poetry into stark stylistic relief (you understand something from seeing differences).
As for his poems more specifically, I didn't particularly care for his early poetry (except "How many bards gild the lapses of time"), not even his much vaunted "On first reading Chapman's Homer." Endymion was an okay read, with flashes of quotable lines and solid turns of phrase (e.g., "Speak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails / Will slime the rose to-night..."). Lamia, Isabella, and The Eve of St. Agnes left me rather indifferent. BUT I did enjoy his 1819 Odes, especially "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale" as well as "To Autumn." The posthumous and fugitive poems were mostly misses for me, though they were some hits, too, like "This living hand, now warm and capable," "If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd" and "Lines written in the Highlands after visiting the Burns Country," and "On visiting the Tomb of Burns" (though surprisingly I didn't—or couldn't—appreciate his famous "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" as much as its status calls for). And finally, The Fall of Hyperion. It's a different beast altogether—if he had the time and energy to continue it, I had the feeling it would have been his masterpiece. This is where Keats manages to blend his philosophy of poetry and personal experience with myth, and the result is electrifying to say the least. The opening alone is great poetry:
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at heaven; pity these have not
Traced upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance,
But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,—
With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain
And dumb enchantment...
All in all, the 3 months I spent with Keats was definitely worth it.
In the introduction to this book, the poet Edward Hirsch writes, "John Keats's poems and letters were for me ... the portals of poetry itself." I won't go that far (my portals were the poems of Lorca), but they were definitely portals to metered and rhymed poetry for me. It was around the beginning of this book that I got into writing poetry in iambic meter, and this book really trained my ear and schooled me in iambic pentameter. Reading a book on poetic rhythm and Gerard Manley Hopkin's stress verse alongside this really helped, too, as the former gave me a theoretical understanding of the meter (esp. the notions of beats, inversions, and elisions) and the latter threw Keats's poetry into stark stylistic relief (you understand something from seeing differences).
As for his poems more specifically, I didn't particularly care for his early poetry (except "How many bards gild the lapses of time"), not even his much vaunted "On first reading Chapman's Homer." Endymion was an okay read, with flashes of quotable lines and solid turns of phrase (e.g., "Speak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails / Will slime the rose to-night..."). Lamia, Isabella, and The Eve of St. Agnes left me rather indifferent. BUT I did enjoy his 1819 Odes, especially "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale" as well as "To Autumn." The posthumous and fugitive poems were mostly misses for me, though they were some hits, too, like "This living hand, now warm and capable," "If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd" and "Lines written in the Highlands after visiting the Burns Country," and "On visiting the Tomb of Burns" (though surprisingly I didn't—or couldn't—appreciate his famous "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" as much as its status calls for). And finally, The Fall of Hyperion. It's a different beast altogether—if he had the time and energy to continue it, I had the feeling it would have been his masterpiece. This is where Keats manages to blend his philosophy of poetry and personal experience with myth, and the result is electrifying to say the least. The opening alone is great poetry:
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at heaven; pity these have not
Traced upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance,
But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,—
With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain
And dumb enchantment...
All in all, the 3 months I spent with Keats was definitely worth it.
February 28, 2008
"When I have fears that I may cease to be..."
July 23, 2021
این کتاب و کلا کیتز اگه قرار باشه از روی کارای شاخصش قضاوت بشه پنج ستاره هم کمه ینی اصلا فک کنم به طور کلی چیز دیگه ای در اون حد مشابهش وجود نداره، منتها خیلی از اینا واقعا معمولین یا تو سن کم اونارو نوشته که چیز خاصی ندارن واقعا.
She dwells with beauty-beauty that must die;
She dwells with beauty-beauty that must die;
September 23, 2023
appreciated the poems more than the letters of course.
October 1, 2023
Dan Simmons smiles upon me as I finally crack. Keats whispers secrets and fills readers with well known feelings as if new. One feels mighty and tiny and lonely and loved in his verse. It’s outstanding, moving, and demanding of study. I could dedicate an era dissecting it all, but more must be read…
January 25, 2022
Been reading John Keats' life's work at a few pages per day for... quite some time. Imbuing every day with a lil romance! Often read in a grassy summer field or by a stream. It's what he would have wanted
March 21, 2012
The introduction speaks of Keat's "verbal sumptuousness" and that's apt--particularly if you read these out loud, they're a feast for the ears. That said, I didn't love everything. I was less than wild about Keats' two longest poems, particularly the longest, Endymion, which at over a hundred pages is the only one that could be described as "epic" and the only one that after reading part of it I skipped. I think part of what I don't much like about that poem is that it feels less personal than the others. Although the shorter poetry has a lot of classical allusions, here the world of Greek myth is central, and strikes me as too artificial and pedantic unlike the way it hits me when it comes from a Homer or Vergil. Poems such as "On Chapman's Homer," "Ode to a Grecian Urn" and "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles For the First Time" are about Keats' reaction to things classical, which is a different story. Or maybe it's just Keats wasn't then ready to handle an epic theme. He himself said he was stretching himself and saw the poem as flawed, if a great learning experience, and when it was published, the poem drew scathing reviews.
Yet, even Endymion has its riches--the first line is "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." That certainly can be said of Keats' poetry. There are so many of the shorter lyric poetry and sonnets that are so absolutely gorgeous it would just be too long to list all I loved in a review, but I'll try to list my five favorites in order they're found in the book--even though I know the choices are rather predictable.
1) "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" - because it expresses so well the wonder of discovery to be found in reading with its "realms of gold."
2) "When I Have Fears" - because it's heartbreaking, especially knowing Keat's fate.
3) "La Belle Dame sans Merci" - because it's a creepy, haunting horror story.
4) "Ode on a Grecian Urn" - because well, it's brilliant. ("Beauty is truth, truth beauty.")
5) "To Autumn" - because the imagery is so lush. ("Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness")
Yet it's not just famous ones such as "Ode to a Grecian Urn" or "La Belle Dans Merci" but it's the ones such as say "Fancy" that don't often make it into anthologies that thus justify reading a book devoted to Keats alone. Ordinarily, given I didn't like a poem which takes up a quarter of the book's length, I'd mark the book down in the rating, but with Keats I can't bear to. Absolutely a first-rate poet, it's obscene that he died at twenty-five years old.
Yet, even Endymion has its riches--the first line is "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." That certainly can be said of Keats' poetry. There are so many of the shorter lyric poetry and sonnets that are so absolutely gorgeous it would just be too long to list all I loved in a review, but I'll try to list my five favorites in order they're found in the book--even though I know the choices are rather predictable.
1) "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" - because it expresses so well the wonder of discovery to be found in reading with its "realms of gold."
2) "When I Have Fears" - because it's heartbreaking, especially knowing Keat's fate.
3) "La Belle Dame sans Merci" - because it's a creepy, haunting horror story.
4) "Ode on a Grecian Urn" - because well, it's brilliant. ("Beauty is truth, truth beauty.")
5) "To Autumn" - because the imagery is so lush. ("Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness")
Yet it's not just famous ones such as "Ode to a Grecian Urn" or "La Belle Dans Merci" but it's the ones such as say "Fancy" that don't often make it into anthologies that thus justify reading a book devoted to Keats alone. Ordinarily, given I didn't like a poem which takes up a quarter of the book's length, I'd mark the book down in the rating, but with Keats I can't bear to. Absolutely a first-rate poet, it's obscene that he died at twenty-five years old.
August 30, 2018
Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats takes the reader on the ride through mythology and Keats's time in the world. Keats wrote new imaginings on old mythologies in the form of poetry. At times I found myself a little awash in a story that felt both oddly familiar and completely foreign at the same time. Keats plays with language in a way that feels both deliberate and carefree. I often found myself looking for a hidden message in the simplest of text and longing for a straightforward message in more complex text. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats sometimes veers into unfinished thoughts and unfinished works with an honesty that disarms even as it brings up one's defenses. I found some of his unfinished work quite compelling as it was, even complete, and some of it... well, unfinished. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats is an intriguing look inside the work and the mind of John Keats that somehow feels like a complete work even with the inclusion of his unfinished works.
August 25, 2024
Most of it won't hold up to casual readers.
I read a bunch of the most well-known works in here as part of a book club where we're reading Dan Simmons's Hyperion . It turned out to be inessential for that project. I wouldn't recommend Keats as a prerequisite to Dan Simmons.
Of the poems I read, my favorites were: "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "Lamia," "Hyperion," and "La Belle Dame sans Merci." The latter is very short and gives you a good sense of what to expect from the rest of it: melodrama arising from men desiring women.
Lamia and Hyperion hold up with the best of Ovid's Metamorphoses . But, with the exception of part 2 of Hyperion (especially Oceanus's speech), I would have just preferred reading Ovid again.
For my notes, here are the others that I read: Endymion, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, Ode on Melancholy, Bright Star, The Fall of Hyperion.
I read a bunch of the most well-known works in here as part of a book club where we're reading Dan Simmons's Hyperion . It turned out to be inessential for that project. I wouldn't recommend Keats as a prerequisite to Dan Simmons.
Of the poems I read, my favorites were: "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "Lamia," "Hyperion," and "La Belle Dame sans Merci." The latter is very short and gives you a good sense of what to expect from the rest of it: melodrama arising from men desiring women.
Lamia and Hyperion hold up with the best of Ovid's Metamorphoses . But, with the exception of part 2 of Hyperion (especially Oceanus's speech), I would have just preferred reading Ovid again.
For my notes, here are the others that I read: Endymion, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, Ode on Melancholy, Bright Star, The Fall of Hyperion.
July 8, 2025
"One never gets tired of thinking about Keats."
I'm not really a poetry guy, or I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I wasn't really a poetry guy before reading Keats? His imagery is beautiful, his references are classical, and he is as compelling as every other great English poet who died young and tragically.
His letters included at the end of the volume which reference his tuberculosis and his great love for Fanny Brawne make for great reading as well as the poetry. My only regret is that I have this as a library book, and had to kind of rush through the end to return it. Oh well -- I definitely will be revisiting Keats in the future.
Dying with his poetry in my pocket would be pretty sick too... (Happy 203 years of being dead Percy Shelley. RIP you probably would've loved refusing to wear life jackets.)
I'm not really a poetry guy, or I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I wasn't really a poetry guy before reading Keats? His imagery is beautiful, his references are classical, and he is as compelling as every other great English poet who died young and tragically.
His letters included at the end of the volume which reference his tuberculosis and his great love for Fanny Brawne make for great reading as well as the poetry. My only regret is that I have this as a library book, and had to kind of rush through the end to return it. Oh well -- I definitely will be revisiting Keats in the future.
Dying with his poetry in my pocket would be pretty sick too... (Happy 203 years of being dead Percy Shelley. RIP you probably would've loved refusing to wear life jackets.)
June 11, 2022
Well, I skimmed or flipped through most of it. He has a lot of long poems, which didn’t keep my interest. He’s also very devoted to the classics and Milton, so a lot of his poems are odes to that type of subject or draw on that inspiration. There was only one letter to Fanny, which was disappointing since I picked up this collection after watching Bright Star. And there were only a few poems directly written to her. My only favorites I read were To Hope, To one who has been long in city pent, and Happy is England. Bright Star was okay. I like his penchant for nature and fantasy, but a lot of it seemed rambling.
December 18, 2019
Favorites:
Fall of Hyperion
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ode to Indolance
On seeing the Elgin Marbles
To Sleep
Ode to melancholy
Bright star
To autumn
So yeah, I guess I love the same Keats poems that everyone has for the past 200 years.
I didn’t care for his plays like king otho or some of his longer poetry like endymion or bells and caps though. Very much so felt like a slog at times. The letters includes in this edition were great as well, particularly the ones to Charles Brown. Sad stuff.
Fall of Hyperion
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ode to Indolance
On seeing the Elgin Marbles
To Sleep
Ode to melancholy
Bright star
To autumn
So yeah, I guess I love the same Keats poems that everyone has for the past 200 years.
I didn’t care for his plays like king otho or some of his longer poetry like endymion or bells and caps though. Very much so felt like a slog at times. The letters includes in this edition were great as well, particularly the ones to Charles Brown. Sad stuff.
January 8, 2021
Torn at having to rate this book at all but I think this is fair. John Keats has my heart but I don’t think it’s any secret that his longer poems and plays are a bit of a slog (I may have skimmed most of Otho the Great). I don’t think I can overstate my love of Keats though, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up a bit at the last lines of his final letter in the collection.
“I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”
“I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”
May 20, 2022
It's too bad he died young. Even his maligned longer works like Endymion have many glorious lines that jump off the page. A lot of his work seems like it would have benefited from disciplined editing - cutting out excesses and letting their best parts shine. The rhyming couplets in some of his longer poems sometimes forces him to reach for rhymes that draw out uninteresting ideas. But his strongest passages are among the best I've ever read.
March 12, 2019
Like most Romantic poetry, it's intricate and beautiful but if you read 513 pages of it all at once eventually it becomes a little much. However, if you take your time going through it's a rewarding experience.
August 8, 2019
He is sooo humane and sooo brave."I always made an awkward bow."
January 4, 2020
This is slow reading for me. It must be the style and the imagery
January 30, 2021
Best of the best.
Read
August 6, 2021DNF
sorry i couldn’t get into keats ...... it’s not that he’s a bad poet i just couldn’t get into his writing style .....
sorry i couldn’t get into keats ...... it’s not that he’s a bad poet i just couldn’t get into his writing style .....
February 2, 2022
I do enjoy Keats’ poems for nature's beauty. A thing of wonder, indeed.
March 8, 2017
Time to re-read and re-assess
March 25, 2021
His words tumble like a rill,
Whose romantic music serves to thrill,
As they faintly brush the soul,
Like the Roman epics of ol’
And though the mythology is dense,
And much could have been condensed,
Yet the footnotes gladly explain,
Saving me from search engines endless pain.
But what strikes me most of all,
Is how he captures love’s dark pall,
How it makes one obsessed,
Till the heart pounds from the chest,
How that one beauty of tragic past,
Makes every other sight seem so aghast,
How one person can strike a chord,
That makes sweet music unadored,
I have felt these pangs before,
Thank you Keats, for sharing yours.
August 2, 2022
How can one not wonder what poems a genius such as John Keats might have written had he lived another twenty years? In his words, he left us “a thing of beauty”, “a joy for ever.” After reading all his poems and the letters selected in this volume, I can say that I prefer his short poems to his epics, such as Endymion, maybe because narratives based on ancient mythology aren’t my taste. I like absorbing myself in the dreamy, verdant atmosphere his verse conjures in my mind. He wrote love poetry that is second to none, drawing from his own powerful romantic emotions. He didn’t leave humor out, either, as in one of my favorites: “Give me Women, Wine, and Snuff / Until I cry out, ‘Hold, enough!’ / You may do so sans objection / Till the day of resurrection / For, bless my beard, they aye shall be / My beloved Trinity.”
December 11, 2013
Read this for a Keats seminar in college. At the moment, Dylan Thomas is the only other verse writer to occupy so special a place in my heart. These poems could be stapled together on pieces of toilet paper and they'd still be worth reading. This nicely bound, helpfully annotated anthology is a bonus. This book contains every single piece of poetry Keats ever wrote, from his charming early doodles ("Imitation of Spenser"), to his clumsy but often hugely clever stab at an epic, "Endymion", to the grotesque genius of "Isabella and the Pot of Basil", to the alarming, heartbreaking nakedness of "This hand, now warm and capable", written near his death of tuberculosis in his 20's.
And that's not including the great ones.
There are those odes, too. They are, simply put, the best odes ever written. Keats was master and commander of that form. If you wish to partake in what is best in our Western literary tradition, "To Autumn", "Ode To A Grecian Urn", "Ode On Melancholy", and "Ode To A Nightingale" are all must-reads. That last one may very well be my favorite poem of all time. Certainly a top-fiver.
If you're pressed for time, check out some of his early delights ("On the Grasshopper and Cricket" and "Sleep and Poetry"), read his sonnets to Byron and to Homer, read "Lamia", his best epic, READ THE BLOODY BRILLIANT ODES, and read his letters on Negative Capability and Soul-Making. Or, better yet, give yourself several months to wade through this whole valley of wonder. It's a memorable and necessary journey.
"Up I rose refresh’d, and glad, and gay,
Resolving to begin that very day
These lines; and howsoever they be done,
I leave them as a father does his son."
For: Anyone who cares about Western literature. Poetry lovers. Romantics with a big R and romantics with a small one. Anglophiles.
And that's not including the great ones.
There are those odes, too. They are, simply put, the best odes ever written. Keats was master and commander of that form. If you wish to partake in what is best in our Western literary tradition, "To Autumn", "Ode To A Grecian Urn", "Ode On Melancholy", and "Ode To A Nightingale" are all must-reads. That last one may very well be my favorite poem of all time. Certainly a top-fiver.
If you're pressed for time, check out some of his early delights ("On the Grasshopper and Cricket" and "Sleep and Poetry"), read his sonnets to Byron and to Homer, read "Lamia", his best epic, READ THE BLOODY BRILLIANT ODES, and read his letters on Negative Capability and Soul-Making. Or, better yet, give yourself several months to wade through this whole valley of wonder. It's a memorable and necessary journey.
"Up I rose refresh’d, and glad, and gay,
Resolving to begin that very day
These lines; and howsoever they be done,
I leave them as a father does his son."
For: Anyone who cares about Western literature. Poetry lovers. Romantics with a big R and romantics with a small one. Anglophiles.
Read
September 11, 2015Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.
There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar'd himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony,
And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.
Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle
That in that fairest lake had placed been,
I could e'en Dido of her grief beguile;
Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen:
For sure so fair a place was never seen,
Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye:
It seem'd an emerald in the silver sheen
Of the bright waters; or as when on high,
Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the cœrulean sky.
And all around it dipp'd luxuriously
Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,
Which, as it were in gentle amity,
Rippled delighted up the flowery side;
As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,
Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem!
Haply it was the workings of its pride,
In strife to throw upon the shore a gem
Outviewing all the buds in Flora's diadem.
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.
There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar'd himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony,
And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.
Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle
That in that fairest lake had placed been,
I could e'en Dido of her grief beguile;
Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen:
For sure so fair a place was never seen,
Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye:
It seem'd an emerald in the silver sheen
Of the bright waters; or as when on high,
Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the cœrulean sky.
And all around it dipp'd luxuriously
Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,
Which, as it were in gentle amity,
Rippled delighted up the flowery side;
As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,
Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem!
Haply it was the workings of its pride,
In strife to throw upon the shore a gem
Outviewing all the buds in Flora's diadem.
October 11, 2009
Rating this feels weird-- it's Keats, his entire poetic corpus, take it or leave it. I'm happy with the book, and while I have moods when I find some of Keats' work cheesy, overall I enjoy him and see no reason to mark this collection down. Highlights for me: Ode on a Grecian Urn (a very pivotal text for ekphrasis in Western Lit), To Autumn (I'm a Fall kind of a guy), On seeing the Elgin Marbles, On first looking into Chapman's Homer (I know some of these are the "big" poems that everyone mentions, but I like them anyway), When I have fears that I may cease to be" (which is of course so poignant for us, knowing that he died so young). I prefer shorter poetry, but hope to make my way through some of the Romantic monstrosities that we find in here (tried Endymion once, but never finished it). The letters are nice too, but not nearly complete enough a collection to be satisfying.
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