John Keats Quotes

287 Sourced Quotes

How sad it is when a luxurious imagination is obliged in self defense to deaden its delicacy in vulgarity, and riot in things attainable that it may not have leisure to go mad after things that are not.

John Keats
Let us not go hurrying about and collecting honey, bee-like buzzing here and there for a knowledge of what is not to be arrived at, but let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive, budding patiently under the eye of Apollo, and taking hints from every noble insect that favours us with a visit - sap will be given us for meat and dew for drink.

John Keats
Through the dancing poppies stole A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul.

John Keats
'Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright.
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen-
For what listen they?

John Keats
All my clear-eyed fish, Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish, Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze... My charming rod, my potent river spells...

John Keats
Feeling well that breathed words Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps Of grasshoppers against the sun...

John Keats
Or thou might'st better listen to the wind, Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden through the trees.

John Keats
Young playmates of the rose and daffodil, Be careful ere ye enter in, to fill Your baskets high With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines Savory latter-mint, and columbines.

John Keats
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time.

John Keats
Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight; With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things, To bind them all about with tiny rings.

John Keats
Andromeda! Sweet woman! Why delaying So timidly among the stars: come hither! Join this bright throng, and nimbly follow whither They all are going.

John Keats
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep?

John Keats
Dry your eyes O dry your eyes, For I was taught in Paradise To ease my breast of melodies.

John Keats
Neither poetry, nor ambition, nor love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me.

John Keats
An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking people-it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the burden of the mystery.

John Keats
But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed.

John Keats
Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, Lover of loneliness, and wandering, Of upcast eye, and tender pondering! Thee must I praise above all other glories That smile us on to tell delightful stories.

John Keats
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently.

John Keats
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;

John Keats
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

John Keats
O let me lead her gently o'er the brook, Watch her half-smiling lips and downward look; O let me for one moment touch her wrist; Let me one moment to her breathing list; And as she leaves me, may she often turn Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne.

John Keats
There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality.

John Keats
A casement high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings.

John Keats
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach
A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds;
Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams,
To taste the luxury of sunny beams
Temper'd with coolness.

John Keats
She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

John Keats
The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children.

John Keats
Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
From low hung branches; little space they stop;
But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:
Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings
Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.

John Keats
The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide.

John Keats
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest.

John Keats
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.

John Keats