Quotes from John Keats

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.

Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

I would have borne it as I would bear death if fate was in that humour: but I should as soon think of choosing to die as to part from you.

What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon poet.

Call the world, if you please, the vale of Soul-making. Then you will find out the use of the world.

Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;

I see, and sing by my own eyes inspired. O let me be thy Choir and make a moan Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged Censer teeming; Thy Shrine, thy Grove, thy Oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouthe'd Prophet dreaming! Yes, I will be thy Priest and build a fane In some untrodden region of my Mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain Instead of pies shall murmer in the wind

A clammy dew is beading on my brow, At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse. "Ha! ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse Made of rose leaves and thistledown, express, To cradle thee my sweet, and lull thee: yes, I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch: My tenderest squeeze is but a giant's clutch.

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft swell and fall, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

Alas! thou this wilt never do: Thou art an enchantress too, And wilt surely never spill Blood of those whose eyes can kill.

I have been Presumptuous against love, against the sky, Against all elements, against the tie Of mortals each to each, against the blooms Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs Of heroes gone.

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 ...

Knowing well that my life must be passed in fatigue and and trouble, I have been endeavouring to wean myself from you: for to myself alone what can be much of a misery? As far as they regard myself I can despise all events: but I cannot cease to love you.

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.

And must not, it may be asked, all this labour spent upon Keats' memory and remains, all this load of editing and re-editing and commentary and biography and scholiast-work laid upon a poet who declared that all poems ought to be understood without any comment, — must it not by this time have fairly smothered, or is it not at least in danger of smothering, Keats himself and his poetry?

Even while you read this, whole square miles of identical boxes are spreading like gangrene; developments conceived in error, nurtured by greed, corroding everything they touch.

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd. So let me be thy choir, and make a moan Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged censer teeming; Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: - Ode to Psyche - Excerpt

Even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you: how much more deeply then must I feel for you knowing you love me. My Mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it. I never felt my Mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment -- upon no person but you. When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window: you always concentrate my whole senses.

yet let us sing, Honour to the old bow-string! 50 Honour to the bugle-horn! Honour to the woods unshorn! Honour to the Lincoln green! Honour to the archer keen! Honour to tight little John, And the horse he rode upon! Honour to bold Robin Hood

When the pig is over-roasted, Huzza for folly O! And the cheese is over-toasted, Huzza for folly O!

I feel confident I should have been a rebel Angel had the opportunity been mine.

Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne

O, the sweetness of the pain! Give me those lips again! Enough! Enough! It is enough for me To dream of thee!

Shakespeare permeated his whole being, and his influence is to be detected not in a resemblance of style, for Shakespeare can have no imitators, but in a broadening view of life, and increased humanity.