Quotes from work
Endymion

John Keats

Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818 by Taylor and Hessey of Fleet Street in London. It begins with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". Endymion is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter . Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved of the moon goddess Selene. The poem elaborates on the original story and renames Selene "Cynthia" .

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 1
Endymion (1818)
Context: A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 1
Endymion (1818)

“There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.”

John Keats Endymion

Preface
Endymion (1818)

“O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hush’d and smooth!”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 453
Endymion (1818)

“Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o’ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 25
Endymion (1818)

“Tis the pest
Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. II, l. 365
Endymion (1818)

“So many, and so many, and such glee.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. IV
Endymion (1818)

“He ne'er is crown'd
With immortality, who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. II, l. 211
Endymion (1818)

“Time, that aged nurse,
Rocked me to patience.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 705
Endymion (1818)

“And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 20
Endymion (1818)

“In spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 11
Endymion (1818)

“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, the ambition thicksighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.”

John Keats Endymion

Preface
Endymion (1818)

“Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain
Clings cruelly to us.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 906
Endymion (1818)

“My restless spirit never could endure
To brood so long upon one luxury,
Unless it did, though fearfully, espy
A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 854
Endymion (1818)

“Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with essence; till we shine,
Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold
The clear religion of heaven!”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 777
Endymion (1818)

“Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept
Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 789
Endymion (1818)
Context: Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept
Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are
Richer entanglements, enthralments far
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
Upon the forehead of humanity.