Quotes from work
Sleep and Poetry

John Keats

"Sleep and Poetry" is a poem by the English Romantic poet John Keats. It was started late one evening while staying the night at Leigh Hunt's cottage. It is often cited as a clear example of Keats's bower-centric poetry, yet it contains lines that make such a simplistic reading problematic, such as:

“But strength alone though of the Muses born
Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs,
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.”

John Keats Sleep and Poetry

"Sleep and Poetry", st. 11
Poems (1817)

“A drainless shower
Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power;
’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm.”

John Keats Sleep and Poetry

"Sleep and Poetry", st. 11
Poems (1817)

“O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.”

John Keats Sleep and Poetry

"Sleep and Poetry", st. 6
Poems (1817)