| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | After Dark Vapours Have Oppressed Our Plains | | By John Keats (1795–1821) |
| | | AFTER dark vapours have oppressed our plains | |
| For a long dreary season, comes a day | |
| Born of the gentle South, and clears away | |
| From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. | |
| The anxious month, relievèd of its pains, | 5 |
| Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May; | |
| The eyelids with the passing coolness play, | |
| Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains. | |
| The calmest thoughts come round us—as of leaves | |
| Budding,—fruit ripening in stillness,—autumn suns | 10 |
| Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,— | |
| Sweet Sappho’s cheek;—a smiling infant’s breath,— | |
| The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,— | |
| A woodland rivulet, a Poet’s death. | | | | |
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