542. Last Sonnet. John Keats. 1909-14. English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald. The Harvard Classics

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

542. Last Sonnet

John Keats (1795–1821)


BRIGHT STAR! would I were steadfast as thou art:—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task	5
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors:—

No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair Love’s ripening breast	10
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever,—or else swoon to death.