“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,The moving waters at their priestlike taskOf pure ablution round earth's human shores,Or gazing on the new soft-fallen maskOf snow upon the mountains and the moors--No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever--or else swoon to death.”John Keats
“To SorrowI bade good-morrow,And thought to leave her far away behind;But cheerly, cheerly,She loves me dearly;She is so constant to me, and so kind:I would deceive herAnd so leave her,But ah! she is so constant and so kind.”John Keats EndymionBk. IV, l. 173 Endymion (1818)
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leaveThy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”John Keats Ode on a Grecian UrnStanza 2 Poems (1820), Ode on a Grecian Urn