Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Keats. 17951821632. Stanzas
IN a drear-nighted December, | |
Too happy, happy tree, | |
Thy branches ne’er remember | |
Their green felicity: | |
The north cannot undo them, | 5 |
With a sleety whistle through them; | |
Nor frozen thawings glue them | |
From budding at the prime. | |
In a drear-nighted December, | |
Too happy, happy brook, | 10 |
Thy bubblings ne’er remember | |
Apollo’s summer look; | |
But with a sweet forgetting, | |
They stay their crystal fretting, | |
Never, never petting | 15 |
About the frozen time. | |
Ah! would ’twere so with many | |
A gentle girl and boy! | |
But were there ever any | |
Writhed not at passèd joy? | 20 |
To know the change and feel it, | |
When there is none to heal it, | |
Nor numbèd sense to steal it, | |
Was never said in rhyme. |