John Keats (1795–1821)

THE DAY is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hands, and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone,

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang’rous waist!

Faded the flower and all its budded charms;

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes;

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms;

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise,—

Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve,

When the dusk holiday—or holinight—

Of fragrant-curtained love begins to weave

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;

But, as I ’ve read love’s missal through to-day,

He ’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.