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

John Keats (1795–1821)

Sonnets: Written in January, 1817

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, relieved from its pains,

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.

And calmest thoughts come round us—as, of leaves

Budding,—fruit ripening in stillness,—autumn suns

Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,—

Sweet Sappho’s cheek,—a sleeping infant’s breath,—

The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,—

A woodland rivulet,—a Poet’s death.