John Keats

I have been half in love with easeful Death.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known.

For what can wake the mortal mind to poesy? The lyre's chords, the wind's soft sigh, The murmur of the bees at honey-bloom.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night.

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell.

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain.

Then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

To one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen.

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken.

Ever let the fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.

A poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no identity; he is continually informing and filling some other body.

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us—if we do not find the genuine mark, we say it is not poetry but prose working in a different field.

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty years could ever contain.

My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity—it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance.

If Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

Scenery is fine—but human nature is finer.