* * *

John Keats

Bright Star

 Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- 

 Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

 And watching, with eternal lids apart,

 Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

 The moving waters at their priestlike task

 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

 Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

 Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--

 No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

 Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

 To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

 Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

 Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

 And so live ever--or else swoon to death. 

A Party Of Lovers

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,

Nibble their toast, and cool their tea with sighs,

Or else forget the purpose of the night,

Forget their tea -- forget their appetite.

See with cross'd arms they sit -- ah! happy crew,

The fire is going out and no one rings

For coals, and therefore no coals Betty brings.

A fly is in the milk-pot -- must he die

By a humane society?

No, no; there Mr. Werter takes his spoon,

Inserts it, dips the handle, and lo! soon

The little straggler, sav'd from perils dark,

Across the teaboard draws a long wet mark.

Arise! take snuffers by the handle,

There's a large cauliflower in each candle.

A winding-sheet, ah me! I must away

To No. 7, just beyond the circus gay.

'Alas, my friend! your coat sits very well;

Where may your tailor live?' 'I may not tell.

O pardon me -- I'm absent now and then.

Where might my tailor live? I say again

I cannot tell, let me no more be teaz'd --

He lives in Wapping, might live where he pleas'd.'