Quote#Death
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
Quote byJohn Keats · 1795–1821
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Ode to a Nightingale, Stanza 6.
English (original)
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod.
— John Keats
More from John Keats
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.
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.
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.
In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity.
then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.