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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  632. Stanzas

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

John Keats. 1795–1821

632. 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.