Quotes from John Keats

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 famed 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?

O aching time! O moments big as years!

Oh ye! Who have your eye-balls vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the sea

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 mouths sips:

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take.

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.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?

You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.

t this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination's struggles, far and nigh, All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence, and to shew How quiet death is.

You dazzled me. There is nothing in the world so bright and delicate.

But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet ..Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy

You are to me an object so intensely desirable that the air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy

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.

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

But this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination's struggles, far and nigh, All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence. -Keats, Endymion This is the 'goal' of the soul path – to feel existence; not to overcome life's struggles and anxieties, but to know life first hand, to exist fully in context. (Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, p.260)

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take: From something of material sublime, Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time In the dark void of night. For in the world We jostle, - but my flag is not unfurl'd...

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death.

I find that I can have no enjoyment in the World but continual drinking of Knowledge - I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world

The same that oft-times hath charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? The transient pleasures as a vision seem, And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.

Fine writing, next to doing nothing, is the best thing in the world.

Let me write not for fame and laurel, but from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful even if my night's labors be burnt each morning and no eye ever shine upon them.

Even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself: but from some character in whose soul I now live.