Life, letters, and literary remains, of John Keats, Volume 2

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Page 103 - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
Page 25 - I have given up Hyperion — there were too many Miltonic inversions in it — Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful, or, rather, artist's humour. I wish to give myself up to other sensations. English ought to be kept up.
Page 99 - And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, 440 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
Page 260 - I HAD a dove and the sweet dove died; And I have thought it died of grieving! O, what could it grieve for ? Its feet were tied, With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving; Sweet little red feet ! why should you die — Why should you leave me, sweet bird ! why?
Page 269 - I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song.
Page 291 - It keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Page 269 - I saw pale kings and princes too. Pale warriors, death-pale were they all ; They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!' I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side.
Page 108 - Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong, They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Page 301 - Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell: No God, no Demon of severe response Deigns to reply from heaven or from Hell — Then to my human heart I turn at once — Heart! thou and I are here sad and alone; Say, wherefore did I laugh?
Page 277 - They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings: O folly! What is Love? and where is it? And for that poor Ambition! it springs From a man's little heart's short fever-fit; For Poesy! — no, — she has not a joy, — At least for me, — so sweet as drowsy noons, And evenings steep'd in honied indolence; O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy, That I may never know how change the moons, Or hear the voice of busy common-sense! And once more came they by; — alas! wherefore?

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