| John Keats (1795–1821). The Poetical Works of John Keats. 1884. |
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| 53. In a drear-nighted December |
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| IN a drear-nighted December, | |
| Too happy, happy tree, | |
| Thy branches ne’er remember | |
| Their green felicity: | |
| The north cannot undo them, | 5 |
| With a sleety whistle through them; | |
| Nor frozen thawings glue them | |
| From budding at the prime. | |
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| In a drear-nighted December, | |
| Too happy, happy brook, | 10 |
| Thy bubblings ne’er remember | |
| Apollo’s summer look; | |
| But with a sweet forgetting, | |
| They stay their crystal fretting, | |
| Never, never petting | 15 |
| About the frozen time. | |
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| Ah! would ’t were so with many | |
| A gentle girl and boy! | |
| But were there ever any | |
| Writhed not at passed joy? | 20 |
| To know the change and feel it, | |
| When there is none to heal it, | |
| Nor numbed sense to steal it, | |
| Was never said in rhyme. | |
| | | See Notes. |
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