Quote#Books & Reading
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
Quote byJohn Keats · 1795–1821
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Poems (1817), "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 72.
English (original)
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies ’gainst the streams, To taste the luxury of sunny beams Temper’d with coolness.
— John Keats
More from John Keats
In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity.
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.
My spirit is too weak — mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
But were there ever any Writh'd not of passed joy? The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steel it, Was never said in rhyme.
then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.