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Home  »  The Book of Georgian Verse  »  John Keats (1795–1821)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

The Human Seasons

John Keats (1795–1821)

FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness—to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook:

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forgo his mortal nature.