(via vanian)
Fanny: O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms alone and palely loitering? The sedge has winther’d from the lake and no birds sing.
John: 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 set her on my pacing steed and nothing else saw all day long. For sidelong would she bend and sing a faery’s song.
Fanny: She found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild, and mana dew. And sure in language strange she said ‘I love thee true’.
John: She took me to her elfin grot.
Fanny: And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore.
John: And there I shut her wild wild eyes with kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep. And there I dream’d, ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream’d, on the cold hill side.
Sorry that I’ve reblogged these out of order, but this was the first poem I ever learnt off by heart.
keatsandyeatsonyourside:defrock:graemebooks:byronic:
John Keats (1795-1821), Ode to the Nightingale, manuscript, 1819
So lovely! I looove seeing the original manuscripts of things like this.
I’m purposefully just glancing over this in case I shatter the comforting ‘Keats couldn’t spell for toffee’ myth for myself. Plus I have a headache.
