by Keats · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
Sonnet on the harmonious presence of past poets in the mind, likened to the blended sounds of evening; poetic tradition, memory and the music of nature.
Connections
Topoi: Immortality Through Verse Motifs: Memory, Music and Song, Time Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
How many bards gild the lapses of time!
A few of them have ever been the food
Of my delighted fancy, — I could brood
Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,
These will in throngs before my mind intrude:
But no confusion, no disturbance rude
Do they occasion; ’tis a pleasing chime.
So the unnumber’d sounds that evening store;
The songs of birds — the whisp’ring of the leaves —
The voice of waters — the great bell that heaves
With solemn sound, — and thousand others more,
That distance of recognizance bereaves,
Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.