Showing posts with label John Keats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Keats. Show all posts

Friday, October 28, 2011

To Autumn (John Keats, 1795-1821)


1

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
1819

Friday, December 26, 2008

Winter (John Keats, 1795 – 1821)

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Portrait of John Keats by William Hilton, after Joseph Severn (National Portrait Gallery, London).
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In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would ’twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.
Now for a little smarm--okay, so I'm feeling a bit sentimental because it's still the holiday season...
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Our Winter Love (The Lettermen)



sylvette323

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Monday, August 4, 2008

Classic Poetry: Meg Merrilies (John Keats, 1795-1821)


John Keats
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Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
----And liv'd upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
----And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
----Her currants pods o' broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
----Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
----Her Sisters larchen trees--
Alone with her great family
----She liv'd as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
----No dinner many a noon,
And 'stead of supper she would stare
----Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
----She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
----She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
----She plaited Mats o' Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
----She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
----And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
----A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere--
----She died full long agone!

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