Keats
Keats
Original Text
The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Bibliographical and Critical Notes, Riverside Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), III, 201-02. PS 2250 E90 Robarts Library.
2 The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
3 The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
4 To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
6 It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
7 Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold
8 A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
9Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
11 Was writ in water." And was this the meed
12Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write:
14 Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."
Notes
1] See Keats' poem Endymion, which tells of a youth searching for beauty who is rewarded by the moon goddess with unending sleep. Longfellow associates Keats with his own subject. Back to Line
5] See Keats' poem Ode to a Nightingale. Back to Line
10] The epitaph Keats wrote for himself. Back to Line
13] Isaiah 42.3: "A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth." Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1875
Publication Notes
In The Masque of Pandora
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme
Form