Quotes from John Keats

Upon the forehead of humanity. All its more ponderous and bulky worth Is friendship

Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat! Swart planet in the universe of deeds!

As marble was there lavish, to the vast Of one fair palace, that far far surpass'd, Even for common bulk, those olden three, Memphis, and Babylon, and Nineveh.

In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70

at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse! O first-born on the mountains! by the hues Of heaven on the spiritual air begot: Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot, While yet our England was a wolfish den;

Away, ye horrid moods! Moods of one's mind! You know I hate them well. You know I'd sooner be a clapping bell To some Kamtschatcan missionary church, Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch.

sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face: There saw she direst strife; the supreme God At war with all the frailty of grief, Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge, Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair.

I must confess, that (since I am on the subject) I love you the more in that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else. I have met with women whom I really think would like to be married to a Poem and to be given away by a Novel.

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.

Then sang forth the Nine, Apollo's garland:–yet didst thou divine Such home-bred glory, that they cry'd in vain, "Come hither, Sister of the Island!

Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept.

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. There was a listening fear in her regard, As if calamity had but begun; As if the vanward clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 40 Was with its stored thunder labouring up.

I'll feel my heaven anew

La vita è un'avventura da vivere, non un problema da risolvere.

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-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

The more I have known the more have I lov'd.

Into the wide stream came of purple hue– 'Twas Bacchus and his crew! The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills From kissing cymbals made a merry din– 200 'Twas Bacchus and his kin!

I cannot say forget me—but I would mention that there are impossibilities in the world.

You see how I go on—like so many strokes of a hammer. I cannot help it—I am impell'd, driven to it.

several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

For what has made the sage or poet write but the fair paradise of Nature's light?

There was Lorenzo slain and buried in, There in that forest did his great love cease; Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win, It aches in loneliness — is ill at peace 220

I am a shadow now, alas! alas! Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling Alone: I chant alone the holy mass, While little sounds of life are round me knelling, And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass, And many a chapel bell the hour is telling, 310 Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me, And thou art distant in Humanity.