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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Sonnets: Addressed to Haydon

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

John Keats (1795–1821)

Sonnets: Addressed to Haydon

GREAT spirits now on earth are sojourning:

He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,

Who on Helvellyn’s summit, wide awake,

Catches his freshness from Archangel’s wing:

He of the rose, the violet, the spring,

The social smile, the chain for Freedom’s sake:

And lo! whose steadfastness would never take

A meaner sound than Raphael’s whispering.

And other spirits there are, standing apart

Upon the forehead of the age to come;

These, these will give the world another heart,

And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum

Of mighty workings?——

Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.