dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  John Keats (1795–1821)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

IV. “On Leigh Hunt’s Poem, the ‘Story of Rimini’”

John Keats (1795–1821)

WHO loves to peer up at the morning sun,

With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,

Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek

For meadows where the little rivers run;

Who loves to linger with that brightest one

Of Heaven—Hesperus—let him lowly speak

These numbers to the night, and starlight meek,

Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.

He who knows these delights, and too is prone

To moralize upon a smile or tear,

Will find at once a region of his own,

A bower for his spirit, and will steer

To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone,

Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.