Stanzas

By John Keats

1795-1821


IN a drear-nighted December,
         Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
         Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
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,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
         Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
         About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many
         A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
         Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
         Was never said in rhyme.

DayPoems Poem No. 584
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/584.html">Stanzas by John Keats</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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