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John Keats

John Keats

Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell
No God, no demon of severe response
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell
Then to my human heart I turn at once:
Heart, thou and I are here, sad and alone,
Say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! Forever must I moan
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain?
Why did I laugh? I know this being’s lease
My fancy to it’s utmost blisses spreads
Yet would I on this very midnight cease
And all the world’s gaudy ensigns see in shreds
Verse, fame and beauty are intense indeed
But death intenser, death is life’s high meed.

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Other works by John Keats...
Song. I Had a Dove

I had a dove, and the sweet dove d… And I have thought it died of gri… O, what could it grieve for? its f… With a single thread of my own han… Sweet little red feet, why should…
Sonnet. If by Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’D

If by dull rhymes our English mus… And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet s… Fetter’d, in spite of pained lovel… Let us find out, if we must be con… Sandals more interwoven and comple…
To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent

To one who has been long in city p… 'Tis very sweet to look into the f… And open face of heaven,—to breath… Full in the smile of the blue firm… Who is more happy, when, with hear…
Ode to Fanny

Physician Nature! Let my spirit b… O ease my heart of verse and let m… Throw me upon thy Tripod, till th… Of stifling numbers ebbs from my f… A theme! a theme! great nature! gi…
Fragment of ‘The Castle Builder.’

To-night I’ll have my friar—let m… About my room,—I’ll have it in th… It should be rich and sombre, and… Just in its mid-life in the midst… Should look thro’ four large windo…
To the Ladies Who Saw Me Crowned

WHAT is there in the universal E… More lovely than a Wreath from th… Haply a Halo round the Moon a gle… Circling from three sweet pair of… And haply you will say the dewy bi…
Great Spirits Now on Earth Are Sojourning

GREAT spirits now on earth are s… He of the cloud, the cataract, the… Who on Helvellyn’s summit, wide a… Catches his freshness from Archan… He of the rose, the violet, the sp…
 2
On the Sea

It keeps eternal whisperings aroun… Desolate shores, and with its migh… Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns,… Of Hecate leaves them their old s… Often 'tis in such gentle temper f…
 1
The Eve of Saint Mark. a Fragment

Upon a Sabbath-day it fell; Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell That call’d the folk to evening pr… The city streets were clean and fa… From wholesome drench of April ra…
Fragment of an Ode to Maia

MOTHER of Hermes! and still you…    May I sing to thee As thou wast hymned on the shores…    Or may I woo thee In earlier Sicilian? or thy smile…
On Receiving a Laurel Crown From Leigh Hunt

MINUTES are flying swiftly, and… Nothing unearthly has enticed my b… Into a delphic Labyrinth I would… Catch an unmortal thought to pay t… I owe to the kind Poet who has se…
 1
After dark vapors

After dark vapors have oppress’d o… For a long dreary season, comes a… Born of the gentle south, and clea… From the sick heavens all unseemly… The anxious mouth, relieved from i…
Where's the Poet?

Where’s the Poet? Show him! show… Muses nine! that I may know him! ‘Tis the man, who with a man Is an equal, be he King, Or poorest of the beggar-clan,
 3
Ben Nevis: a Dialogue

There was one Mrs. Cameron of 50 years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness-shire who got up this Mountain some few years ago—true she had her servants—but then she had her sel...
Faery Song

Shed no tear! O shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year… Weep no more! O weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root’s whi… Dry your eyes! O dry your eyes!



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