“If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

— John Keats

Variant: It ought to come like the leaves to the trees, or it better not come at all.

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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John Keats 211

English Romantic poet 1795–1821

Related quotes

“In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think 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 — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Taylor (February 27, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

“The maple tree that night
Without a wind or rain
Let go its leaves
Because its time had come.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

"The Maple Tree"
Poems

“There ain't no leaves to turn to gold—
There ain't a tree in sight—
In other ways the herder's told
October's come, all right.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

October on the Sheep Range http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#October, st. 1.
Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#ccbk (1921)

“somewhere within sight
of the tree of poetry
that is eternity wearing
the green leaves of time.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"Prayer"
Later Poems (1983)

“So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten.”

Howard Pyle book The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Source: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

“And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the bloods in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Preguntaréis ¿por qué su poesía
no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas,
de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?<p>Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver
la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver la sangre
por las calles!
Explico Algunos Cosas (I'm Explaining a Few Things or I Explain a Few Things), Tercera Residencia (Third Residence), IV, stanza 9.
Alternate translation by Donald D. Walsh:
You will ask: why does your poetry
not speak to us of of sleep, of the leaves,
of the great volcanoes of your native land?<p>Come and se the blood in the streets,
come and see
the blood in the streets,
come and see the blood
in the streets!
Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1933)