My New Appreciation for John Keats

So for British Lit. Survey, we have to do a report on a poet and one of the choices had been John Keats. I remembered hearing Keats' name in a movie that was made back in the 40's, and I thought it would be interesting to research him. I had no idea what I was in for.
John Keats' poetry is so beautiful! I love how he uses the imagination for almost all of his poems. He writes about love in such a way that you don't know who he could be talking about. I guess you could say that every poet does that to an extent. The subjects of their poems are vague and can be taken different ways; but John Keats does so in a way that makes every poem he writes sound like a prayer.
One quote that has become the best quote of all time for me from Keats is from a letter to his lover, Fanny. It goes like this: "I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain." I use that quote all the time now! I can't explain my infatuation fully. I guess it is because I am taken in by the idea of forbidden love or a love that cannot be for whatever reason. It's stupid because the ending is hardly ever a fairytale, and I wind up in tears over the ill-fated lovers. I am not saying that Fanny and John's romance was forbidden since they were actually engaged, but one thing I have learned from my years as a romantic was this: If society doesn't get in the way, then fate will. Since John Keats had consumption, he would die very young. It just makes me sad because it's like they didn't have any time to be in love.
My have a few favorite poems by John Keats. The first poem is "La Belle Dame sans Merci":
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
I do not know exactly why I find La Belle Dame sans Merci so beautiful. Maybe it's because it is a ballad so there is a sort of repetition at the beginning and the end. Maybe it's because it is also a story of the objective vs. subjective reality. The volta in the poem is such a strong one! He realizes it was all a dream! There lies the sadness of it!
The other poem that I find more lovely than Shakespeare is "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.

Bright Star is one of those poems that I have to read over and over again because it is not written in a clear way. However, I enjoy it because I always like to think that it's John's love poem to Fanny. Maybe I'm just being a wistful romantic, maybe I'm not being open-minded enough, or maybe I'm right in saying it's a love poem to his "dearest girl". "Dearest girl" is what John would call Fanny in all his letters to her.
***I am departing for County Clare now! The place where the McNamara Family comes from! I am so excited! I will blog about it when I get back! Until my next blog, stay perfect!!***