by Keats · Cluster: Crown · Pride · Fortune’s Wheel
Abstract
A sonnet on the burden and ambition of the laurel crown given by Leigh Hunt, the poet straining for an immortal thought while time flies; poetic vocation and fame.
Connections
Topoi: Immortality Through Verse, Inexpressibility Motifs: Crown, Time, Dreams Themes & Concepts: Ambition Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
Minutes are flying swiftly, and as yet
Nothing unearthly has enticed my brain
Into a delphic labyrinth - I would fain
Catch an unmortal thought to pay the debt
I owe to the kind Poet who has set
Upon my ambitious head a glorious gain.
Two bending laurel sprigs - ’tis nearly pain
To be conscious of such a Coronet.
Still time is fleeting, and no dream arises
Gorgeous as I would have it - only I see 10
A trampling down of what the world most prizes
Turbans and Crowns, and blank regality;
And then I run into most wild surmises
Of all the many glories that may be.