Poet's Corner

"Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art"

John Keats

1  Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art —



   Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,



   And watching, with eternal lids apart,



   Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,





5  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 — 





10  No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,



   Pillowed 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,



15   And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.