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John Keats Quotes - Page 14

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No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.

No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.

John Keats
Summer, Nature, Light
'Hyperion: A Fragment' (1820) bk. 1, l. 7

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.

John Keats
Summer, Sweet, Crystals
John Keats (1818). “The Complete Works of John Keats”, p.241

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan Upon the midnight hours.

John Keats
Midnight, Hours, Choir
John Keats (1914*). “The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats”, p.143, Рипол Классик

Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is - Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust.

John Keats
Life, Dust, Water
'Lamia' (1820) pt. 2, l. 1

My passions are all asleep from my having slumbered till nearly eleven and weakened the animal fiber all over me to a delightful sensation about three degrees on this sight of faintness - if I had teeth of pearl and the breath of lilies I should call it languor - but as I am I must call it laziness. In this state of effeminacy the fibers of the brain are relaxed in common with the rest of the body, and to such a happy degree that pleasure has no show of enticement and pain no unbearable frown. Neither poetry, nor ambition, nor love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me.

John Keats
Love, Pain, Passion

I always made an awkward bow.

John Keats
Farewell, Awkward, Bows
Letter to Charles Armitage Brown, 30 Nov. 1820

I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me.

John Keats
Life, Doors, Two
John Keats (2015). “John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn (Unabridged): From one of the most beloved English Romantic poets, best known for his Odes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Indolence, Ode to Psyche, Ode to Fanny, The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia, Hyperion and more”, p.192, e-artnow

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 hands' weaving.

John Keats
Sweet, Grieving, Hands
'I had a dove and the sweet dove died' (written 1818)

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness.

John Keats
Life, Ambition, Character
'Endymion' (1818) preface

I do think better of womankind than to suppose they care whether Mister John Keats five feet high likes them or not.

John Keats
Caring, Thinking, Feet
Letter to Benjamin Bailey, 18 July 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 342

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm / Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed / That my own soul has to itself decreed.

John Keats
Years, Soul, Deeds
'Sleep and Poetry' (1817) l. 96

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

John Keats
Men, Criticism, Blame
John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.225, e-artnow

I would jump down Etna for any public good - but I hate a mawkish popularity.

John Keats
Hate, Popularity, I Hate
John Keats (2002). “Selected Letters”, p.80, Oxford University Press, USA

He, who is gone, was one of the very kindest friends I possessed, and yet he was not kinder perhaps to me, than to others. His intense mind and powerful feelings would, I truly believe, have done the world some service, had his life been spared but he was of too sensitive a nature and thus he was destroyed!

John Keats
Powerful, Believe, Feelings
John Keats (2015). “John Keats: Lamia (Unabridged Edition): A Narrative Poem from one of the most beloved English Romantic poets, best known for Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Indolence, Ode to Psyche, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion…”, p.365, e-artnow

I never was in love - yet the voice and the shape of a woman has haunted me these two days.

John Keats
Two, Voice, Shapes
John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.227, e-artnow

Are there not thousands in the world who love their fellows even to the death, who feel the giant agony of the world, and more, like slaves to poor humanity, labor for mortal good?

John Keats
Love, Agony, Humanity
John Keats (2015). “The Complete Poetry of John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn + Ode to a Nightingale + Hyperion + Endymion + The Eve of St. Agnes + Isabella + Ode to Psyche + Lamia + Sonnets and more from one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.761, e-artnow

So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries, She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf, Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.

John Keats
Self, Rainbow, Mistress
John Keats (2015). “The Complete Poetry of John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn + Ode to a Nightingale + Hyperion + Endymion + The Eve of St. Agnes + Isabella + Ode to Psyche + Lamia + Sonnets and more from one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.483, e-artnow

The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide.

John Keats
Music, Silver, Trumpets
'The Eve of St Agnes' (1820) st. 4

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?

John Keats
Passion, Heaven, Soul
'Bards of Passion and of Mirth' (1820)

You might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore.

John Keats
Artist, Rift, Might
Letter to Shelley, August 1820, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 2, p. 323; echoing Edmund Spenser 'The Faerie Queen' (1596) bk. 2, canto 7, st. 28, l. 5: 'And with rich metal loaded every rift'

Severn - I - lift me up - I am dying - I shall die easy; don't be frightened - be firm, and thank God it has come.

John Keats
Thank God, Dying, Easy
John Keats, Baron Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton (1848). “Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats”, p.246

Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine; the commonest man shows a grace in his quarrel.

John Keats
Hate, Men, Grace
John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.760, e-artnow

Though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk; though the carpet were of silk, the curtains of the morning clouds; the chairs and sofa stuffed with cygnet's down; the food manna, the wine beyond claret, the window opening on Winander Mere, I should not feel -or rather my happiness would not be so fine, as my solitude is sublime.

John Keats
Happiness, Beautiful, Morning
John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.709, e-artnow

The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

John Keats
Happiness, Stars, Children
John Keats (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of John Keats (Illustrated)”, p.752, Delphi Classics

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair, Strive for her son to seize my careless heart; When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air, Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart: Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright, And fright him as the morning frightens night!

John Keats
Sweet, Morning, Disappointment
John Keats (1914*). “The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats”, p.6, Рипол Классик

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