Quote#Wisdom
Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
Quote byJohn Keats · 1795–1821
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Poems (1817), "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 87.
English (original)
Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.
— 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.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
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.
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.