Quotes from John Keats

I find I cannot exist without Poetry

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be the Polar star of Poetry, as Fancy is the sails - and Imagination the rudder.

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

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

A drainless shower of light is poesy 'tis the supreme of power 'tis might half slumb'ring on its own right arm.

I have good reason to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths.

Severn - I - lift me up - I am dying - I shall die easy; don't be frightened - be firm, and thank God it has come.

I shall soon be laid in the quiet grave--thank God for the quiet grave--O! I can feel the cold earth upon me--the daisies growing over me--O for this quiet--it will be my first.

I would jump down Etna for any public good - but I hate a mawkish popularity.

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.

With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.

It is a flaw In happiness to see beyond our bourn, - It forces us in summer skies to mourn, It spoils the singing of the nightingale.

Health is my expected heaven.

In the long vista of the years to roll,\ Let me not see my country's honor fade;\ Oh! let me see our land retain its soul!\ Her pride in Freedom, and not Freedom's shade.

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

No, no, I'm sure, My restless spirit never could endure To brood so long upon one luxury, Unless it did, though fearfully, espy A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud, Sweet Hope! celestial influence round me shed Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.

Health is the greatest of blessings - with health and hope we should be content to live.

A long poem is a test of invention which I take to be the Polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder.

My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk

Ever let the Fancy roam Pleasure never is at home.