Poem of the Day (March 28)

[Anonymous No.20133503]

What are your thoughts on this poem, /lit/?

“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” by John Keats

Yesterday's poem >>20127903

[Anonymous No.20133504]

>John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, although his poems had been published for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century he was placed in the canon of English literature and was an inspiration to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces". Jorge Luis Borges named his first encounter with Keats an experience he felt all his life. Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he raised extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Sleep and Poetry" and the sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".

[Anonymous No.20133519]

>would I were

[Anonymous No.20133658]

quite nice, isn't it. though cliched (maybe not in his time). the line ending 'unchangeable' i find hard to scan.
anyone else cringe at the phrase 'ripening breast'?
p.s. thanks for these threads OP i have been reading them in warosu and appreciate your efforts

[Anonymous No.20133716]

>>20133503
An excellent example of one of the things poetry could and should be.
nb. Eremite = recluse, hermit

Unchangeable/soft fall and swell - that's a daring rhyme.

top stuff. gold star for that one, Johnny.

[Anonymous No.20133727]

Blows my mind that Keats was ignored during his lifetime. How did that happen?

[Anonymous No.20133828]

Thanks again, op

[Anonymous No.20133847]

Eh, I don't care much for it.

[Anonymous No.20134046]

almost finished Walter Scott's Guy Mannering. Keats once wrote a poem about one of the characters

Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
And liv'd upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
Her currants pods o' broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
Her Sisters larchen trees—
Alone with her great family
She liv'd as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
No dinner many a noon,
And 'stead of supper she would stare
Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
She plaited Mats o' Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere—
She died full long agone!

[Anonymous No.20134049]

>>20133503
I have this one memorized :)

>>20133519
As yes, the subjunctive mood. A dying art.

>>20133727
He was just a kid. Another decade and he would have been recognized as the greatest living poet in England; a decade more, and he would have been recognized as the greatest English poet of all time.

>>20133847
It's not his masterpiece, but I can't find any real faults in it. What don't you like about it?

[Anonymous No.20134062]

>>20133503
I love the sense of scale, traveling from stars to a warm bed. Dreamlike

[Anonymous No.20134107]

>>20134049
>What don't you like about it?
Maybe I'm just a brainlet. But long lines with frequent enjambment kill any sense of rhythm for me. And I get to the end of it and I just think 'so what?'. I wish I were steadfast like a star, a few lines about nature, then being with his love. I don't see how these things are connected.

I dunno, I've never liked just descriptive poetry like this.

[Anonymous No.20134138]

>>20134107
>I wish I were steadfast like a star, a few lines about nature, then being with his love. I don't see how these things are connected.
They're not supposed to be perfectly connected, but there are parallels. Every sonnet has what's called a volta (Italian for "turn"), usually after the eighth line (though Shakespeare typically put his after the twelfth). There's a break between the imagery of the star, which is watching the earth, and that of the poet resting on his lover's breast, but both are alike in their quiet appreciation of beauty. And then he brings them together again in the final line, because Keats says he'll live forever, which is also effectively true of the star; remember its "eternal lids." But then the "or else swoon to death" part is a final twist - a second volta, perhaps - which, in my opinion, makes the whole poem much more intriguing.

[Anonymous No.20134150]

>>20134049
What are your favorite poems of his? Also even as a kid he was the greatest romantic poet.

[Anonymous No.20134158]

>>20134150
>What are your favorite poems of his?
Not a very original answer, but his odes are probably his best works.
>Also even as a kid he was the greatest romantic poet.
True, but that was probably less apparent at the time.

[Anonymous No.20134184]

>>20134138
I understand the structure of sonnets. I just don't like them much. I can't think of any that I found interesting or enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.20134271]

#1
lourd on my hert as winter lies
the state that Scotland's in the day
spring to the north has ay come slow
but noo dour winter's like to stay
for guid
and no for guid

o wae's me on the weary days
when it's scarce grey licht at noon
it maun be a' the stewpit folk
diffusing their dullness roon and roon
like soot
that keeps the sunlicht oot

[i never remember the last stanza]

#2
in the howdumdeid of the cauld hairst night
the warl' like an eemis stane
wags in the lift
an' my eerie memories fa'
like a yowdendrift

like a yowdendrift so's a' couldna read
the words cut oot the stane
had the fug a' fame
an' history's hazelraw
no yirdit thaim

#3.
关关雎鸠
在河之洲
窈窕淑女
君子好逑
参差荇菜
左右流之
窈窕淑女
寤寐求之
[always go blank after that]

no idea if the linebreaks or spelling is right

[Anonymous No.20134297]

>>20134062
warm breasts ...

[Anonymous No.20134530]

The long clause without resolution for 7 lines gives me anxiety. Was this intentional?

[Anonymous No.20135217]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20135232]

>>20134530
the poem is written so as to have no finality except in the closing invocation of death

[Anonymous No.20135234]

>>20133503
>tfw no gf with ripening pillowlike breasts
why even live bros

[Anonymous No.20135264]

>>20134530
I don't know, but it makes it a bitch to read aloud; I'm never sure when to breathe.

[Anonymous No.20135297]

>So at Hyperion's words the Phantoms pale
>Bestirr'd themselves, thrice horrible and cold;
>And from the mirror'd level where he stood
>A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh.
>At this, through all his bulk an agony
>Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown,
>Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular
>Making slow way, with head and neck convuls'd
>From over-strained might. Releas'd, he fled
>To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours
>Before the dawn in season due should blush,
>He breath'd fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
>Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide
>Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams.
>The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
>Each day from east to west the heavens through,
>Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;
>Nor therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
>But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
>Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
>Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark
>Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep
>Up to the zenith,—hieroglyphics old
>Which sages and keen-ey'd astrologers
>Then living on the earth, with labouring thought
>Won from the gaze of many centuries

OP's poem is great, but Hyperion really is his best work even if its unfinished and a little rough at parts.