Bright Star Quotes

“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.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour...”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I wish I was either in your arms full of faith, or that a Thunder bolt would strike me.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“You are always new. THe last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was fill'd with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time...Even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Thou art a dreaming thing,
A fever of thyself.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything 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 was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you … 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.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it — make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me —write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever 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 to death.


Glanzvoller Stern! wär ich so stet wie du,
Nicht hing ich nachts in einsam stolzer Pracht!
SchautŽ nicht mit ewigem Blick beiseite zu,
Einsiedler der Natur, auf hoher Wacht
Beim Priesterwerk der Reinigung, das die See,
Die wogende, vollbringt am Meeresstrand;
Noch starrt ich auf die Maske, die der Schnee
Sanft fallend frisch um Berg und Moore band.
Nein, doch unwandelbar und unentwegt
MöchtŽ ruhn ich an der Liebsten weicher Brust,
Zu fühlen, wie es wogend dort sich regt,
Zu wachen ewig in unruhiger Lust,
Zu lauschen auf des Atems sanftes Wehen -
So ewig leben - sonst im Tod vergehen!”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Through buried paths, where sleepy twilight dreams
The summer time away.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams,
Lover of loneliness, and wandering,
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering!
Thee must I praise above all other glories
That smile us on to tell delightful stories.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Let us away, my love, with happy speed;
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,
- Drown'd all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead.
Awake! arise! my love and fearless be,
For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“And how they kist each other's tremulous eyes.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Softly the breezes from the forest came,
Softly they blew aside the taper's flame;
Clear was the song from Philomel's far bower;
Grateful the incense from the lime-tree flower;
Mysterious, wild, the far-heard trumpet's tone;
Lovely the moon in ether, all alone:
Sweet too, the converse of these happy mortals,
As that of busy spirits when the portals
Are closing in the west; or that soft humming
We hear around when Hesperus is coming.
Sweet be their sleep.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“O let me lead her gently o'er the brook,
Watch her half-smiling lips and downward look;
O let me for one moment touch her wrist;
Let me one moment to her breathing list;
And as she leaves me, may she often turn
Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“When it is moving on luxurious wings,
The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!
How beautiful thou art!”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“When shall we pass a day alone? I have had a thousand kisses, for which with my whole soul I thank love - but if you should deny me the thousand and first - 'twould put me to the proof how great a misery I could live through.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“And we will shade
Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
And I will tell thee stories of the sky,
And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy,
My happy love will overwing all bounds!
O let me melt into thee! let the sounds
Of our close voices marry at their birth;
Let us entwine hoveringly!”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Stop and consider! life is but a day;
A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way
From a tree's summit; a poor Indian's sleep
While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep
Of Montmorenci. Why so sad a moan?
Life is the rose's hope while yet unblown;
The reading of an ever-changing tale;
The light uplifting of a maiden's veil;
A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air;
A laughing schoolboy, without grief or care,
Riding the springy branches of an elm.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I wish you could infuse a little confidence of human nature into my heart. I cannot muster any -- the world is too brutal for me -- I am glad there is such a thing as the grave -- I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“You dazzled me. There is nothing in the world so bright and delicate.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“If I am destined to be happy with you here -- how short is the longest Life.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“How horrid was the chance of slipping into the ground instead of into your arms -- the difference is amazing Love. Death must come at last; Man must die, as Shallow says; but before that is my fate I fain would try what more pleasures than you have given, so sweet a creature as you can give.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I could centre my Happiness in you, I cannot expect to engross your heart so entirely -- indeed if I thought you felt as much for me as I do for you at this moment I do not think I could restrain myself from seeing you again tomorrow for the delight of one embrace. But no -- I must live upon hope and Chance. In case of the worst that can happen, I shall still love you -- but what hatred shall I have for another!”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“To be happy with you seems such an impossibility! it requires a luckier Star than mine! it will never be.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I was alone for a couple of days while Brown went gadding over the country with his ancient knapsack. Now I like his society as well as any Man's, yet regretted his return—it broke in upon me like a Thunderbolt. I had got in a dream among my Books—really luxuriating in a solitude and silence you alone should have disturb'd.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I will stay very little while, for as I am in a train of writing now I fear to disturb it—let it have its course bad or good ...”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Forgive me if I wander a little this evening, for I have been all day employ'd in a very abstract Poem and I am in deep love with you—two things which must excuse me.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne