Quote#Wisdom
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven
Quote byJohn Keats · 1795–1821
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Poems (1820), "Lamia", Pt. II, l. 229.
English (original)
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
— 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.