Keats on the natural world


There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vying with fish of brilliant dye below,
Whose silken fins and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow. ("Imitation of Spenser," 1814)

Hast thou from the caves of Golconda a gem,
        Pure as the ice-drop that froze on the mountain,
Bright as the humming-bird's green diadem,
        When it flutters in sunbeams that shine through a fountain?
                                ("On Receiving a Curious Shell and a Copy of Verses," 1815)

Would be to find where the violet beds were nestling,
And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling.
There must be too a ruin dark and gloomy,
To say 'joy not too much in that's bloomy'. 
                                                 ("To George Felton Mathew," November 1815)


    There saw the swan his neck of archèd snow, 
    And oared himself along with majesty;
    Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show 
    Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony, 
And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.    ("Imitation of Spenser," 1814)



The freaks and dartings of the black-winged swallow, 
Delighting much to see it half at rest,
Dip so refreshingly its wings, and breast
'Gainst the smooth surface, and mark anon
The widening circles into nothing gone.          ("Calidore," Feb.-March 1816)

. . . . . . . Sequestered leafy glades
That through the dimness of their twilight show
Large dock leaves, spiral foxgloves, or the glow 
Of the wild cat's eyes, or silvery stems
Of delicate birch trees, or long grass wgich hems
A little brook.                                                    ("Calidore," Feb.-March 1816)

     What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew
     From his lush clover covert, when . . . . . . 
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
     A fresh-blown musk-rose. 'Twas the first that threw
     Its sweets upon the summer 
                                ("To a Friend who Sent me Some Roses," 29 June 1816)



The poetry of earth is never dead.
        When all the birds are faint with the hot sun
        And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead--
That is the grasshopper's. He takes the lead
        In summer luxury; he has never done
        With his delights, for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never.
        On a lone winter evening, when the frost
              Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, 
        And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
              The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
                                           ("On the Grasshopper and Cricket," 30 Dec. 1816)

Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,
        With Asian elephants.
Onward these myriads--with song and dance,
With zebras striped and sleek Arabians' prance,
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, . . . . 
Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes . . . 
                                                  ("Endymion, Book IV," 5 Oct. -21 Nov. 1817)

       O Sorrow, 
       Why dost borrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?
        To give the glow-worm light?
                                                     ("Endymion, Book IV, " 5 Oct.-21 Nov. 1817)



Cat, who hast passed thy grand climacteric
        How many mice and rats hast in thy days
        Destroyed? How many titbits stolen? Gaze 
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears--but prithee do not stick
        Thy latent talons in me, an upraise
        Thy gentle mew, and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
                                                         ("To Mrs. Reynold's Cat," 16 Jan. 1818)

I've gathered young spring-leaves, and flowers gay
Of periwinkle and wild strawberry, 
Still do I that most fierce destruction see:
The shark at savage prey, the hawk at pounce,
The gentle robin, like a pard or ounce, 
Ravening a worm . . .                  ("To J. H. Reynolds, Esq.," 25 March 1818)



Stay, ruby-breasted warbler, stay, 
        And let me see thy sparkling eye.
Oh, brush not yet the pearl-strung spray,
         Nor bow thy pretty head to fly!                        ("Song," 1815/16)


From Keats: The Complete Poems, ed. Miriam Allott. London: Longman, 1970.

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