Quotes from John Keats

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.

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

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

I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite.

When it is moving on luxurious wings, The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings.

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.

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.

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.

Tall oaks branch charmed by the earnest stars Dream and so dream all night without a stir.

I am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky! How beautiful thou art!

No sooner had I stepp'd into these pleasures Than 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.

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

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.

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.

I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds.

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!

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

one of the most mysterious of semi-speculations is, one would suppose, that of one Mind's imagining into another

The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it Nor numbed sense to steel it, Was never said in rhyme.

Real are the dreams of gods, and soothly pass their pleasures in a long immortal dream.

Time, that aged nurse, rocked me to patience.

Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears, and hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, Tonight if I may guess, thy beauty wears a smile of such delight, As brilliant and as bright As when with ravished, aching, nassal eyes, Lost in a soft amaze I gaze, I gaze

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun/ And she forgot the blue above the trees,/ And she forgot the dells where waters run,/ And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;/ She had no knowledge when the day was done,/ And the new morn she saw not: but in peace/ Hung over her sweet basil evermore,/ And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.