The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies. John Keats

      Fame, like a wayward Giri, will still be coy

      To those who woo her with too slavish knees,

      But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy.

      And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;

      She is a Gipsey, will not speak to those

      Who have not learnt to be content without her;

      A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper’d close,

      Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;

      A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,

      Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar; Ye lovesick

      Bards, repay her scorn for scorn,

      Ye Artists lovelorn, madmen that ye are!

      Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,

      Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

      The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

      Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,

      Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone,

      Bright eyes, accomplish’d shape, and lang’rous waist!

      Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

      Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

      Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

      Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise -

      Vanish’d unseasonably at shut of eve,

      When the dusk holiday – or holinight

      Of fragrant-curtain’d love begins to weave

      The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight ;

      But, as I’ve read love’s missal through today,

      He’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

      O! Were I one of the Olympian twelve,

      Their godships should pass this into a law, -

      That when a man doth set himself in toil

      After some beauty veiled far away,

      Each step he took should make his lady’s hand

      More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more fair;

      And for each briar-berry he might eat,

      A kiss should bud upon the tree of love,

      And pulp and ripen richer every hour,

      To melt away upon the traveller’s lips.

      Two or three posies

      With two or three simples -

      Two or three noses

      With two or three pimples -

      Two or three wise men

      And two or three ninny’s -

      Two or three purses

      And two or three guineas -

      Two or three raps

      At two or three doors -

      Two or three naps

      Of two or three hours -

      Two or three cats

      And two or three mice

      Two or three sprats

      At a very great price -

      Two or three sandies

      And two or three tabbies -

      Two or three dandies

      And two Mrs – mum!

      Two or three smiles

      And two or three frowns -

      Two or three miles

      To two or three towns -

      Two or three pegs

      For two or three bonnets -

      Two or three dove eggs

      To hatch into sonnets.

      What is there in the universal Earth

      More lovely than a Wreath from the bay tree?

      Haply a Halo round the Moon – a glee

      Circling from three sweet pair of lips in mirth;

      And haply you will say the dewy birth

      Of morning roses – riplings tenderly

      Spread by the Halcyon’s breast upon the sea -

      But these comparisons are nothing worth -

      Then is there nothing in the world so fair?

      The silvery tears of April? – Youth of May?

      Or June that breaths out life for butterflies?

      No – none of these can from my favourite bear

      Away the Palm – yet shall it ever pay

      Due reverence to your most sovereign eyes.

      Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port,

      Away with old Hock and Madeira,

      Too earthly ye are for my sport;

      There’s a beverage brighter and clearer.

      Instead of a pitiful rummer,

      My wine overbrims a whole summer;

      My bowl is the sky,

      And I drink at my eye,

      Till I feel in the brain

      A Delphian pain -

      Then follow, my Caius! then follow:

      On the green of the hill

      We will drink our fill

      Of golden sunshine,

      Till our brains intertwine

      With the glory and grace of Apollo!

      God of the meridian,

      And of the east and west,

      To thee my soul is flown,

      And my body is earthward press’d. -

      It is an awful mission,

      A terrible division;

      And leaves a gulf austere

      To be fill’d with worldly fear.

      Aye, when the soul is fled

      To

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