A Party Of Lovers

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,
Nibble their toast, and cool their tea with sighs,
Or else forget the purpose of the night,
Forget their tea, forget their appetite.
See with cross'd arms they sit, ah! happy crew,
The fire is going out and no one rings
For coals, and therefore no coals Betty brings.
A fly is in the milk-pot, must he die
By a humane society?
No, no; there Mr. Werter takes his spoon,
Inserts it, dips the handle, and lo! soon
The little straggler, sav'd from perils dark,
Across the teaboard draws a long wet mark.
Arise! take snuffers by the handle,
There's a large cauliflower in each candle.
A winding-sheet, ah me! I must away
To No. 7, just beyond the circus gay.
'Alas, my friend! your coat sits very well;
Where may your tailor live?'    'I may not tell.
O pardon me, I'm absent now and then.
Where might my tailor live?    I say again
I cannot tell, let me no more be teaz'd,
He lives in Wapping, might live where he pleas'd.'

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet who is among the most beloved of all English poets. His work is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in his series of odes. Though his poems were not generally well-received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew posthumously. Keats’ work, such as "Ode to a Nightingale", and "To Autumn", has had a lasting effect on many writers and artists. He died at the young age of 25 from tuberculosis.

John Keats

Ode To Psyche

John Keats, Simple Poetry

Ode To A Nightingale

John Keats, Simple Poetry

The Gadfly

John Keats, Simple Poetry

Spenserian Stanzas On Charles Armitage Brown

John Keats, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Dawlish Fair

Over the hill and over the dale,
And over the bourn to Dawlish,
Where gingerbread wives have a scanty sale
And gingerbread nuts are smallish.

Rantipole Betty she ran down a hill
And kicked up her petticoats fairly;
Says I I'll be Jack if you will be Gill,
So she sat on the grass debonairly.

Here's somebody coming, here's somebody coming!
Says I 'tis the wind at a parley;
So without any fuss any hawing and humming
She lay on the grass debonairly.

Here's somebody here and here's somebody there!
Says I hold your tongue you young Gipsey;
So she held her tongue and lay plump and fair
And dead as a Venus tipsy.

O who wouldn't hie to Dawlish fair,
O who wouldn't stop in a Meadow,
O who would not rumple the daisies there
And make...

John Keats

Ode To A Nightingale

1.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
T...

John Keats

Fragment Of "The Castle Builder."

To-night I'll have my friar, let me think
About my room, I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;
A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon...

John Keats

Epistle To My Brother George

Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should never hear Apollo's song,
Though feathery clouds were floating all along
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:
That the still murmur of the honey bee
Would never teach a rural song to me:
That the bright glance from beauty's eyelids slanting
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold
Some tale of lov...

John Keats

De Tea Fabula.

Plain Language from truthful James^[1].


Do I sleep?    Do I dream?
    Am I hoaxed by a scout?
Are things what they seem,
    Or is Sophists about?
Is our "to ti en einai" a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Which expressions like these
    May be fairly applied
By a party who sees
    A Society skied
Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.

'Twas November the third,
    And I says to Bill Nye,
'Which it's true what I've heard:
    If you're, so to speak, fly,
There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as High.'

Which I mentioned its name,
    And he ups and remarks:
'If dress-coats is the game
    And pow-wow in the Parks,
Then I 'm nuts on...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Ode On Indolence

1.

One morn before me were three figures seen,
I With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

2.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain ha...

John Keats