by Keats · Cluster: Memory and Time · Memory · Nostalgia
Abstract
A sonnet recalling a fleeting glimpse of a lady five years past, whose remembered beauty eclipses every present delight; unrequited love, memory, time and the rose.
Connections
Motifs: Time, Memory, Rose, Sea Themes & Concepts: Unrequited Frustrated Love, Nostalgia, Memory and Time Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb,
Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand,
Since I was tangled in thy beauty’s web,
And snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
And yet I never look on midnight sky,
But I behold thine eyes’ well memory’d light;
I cannot look upon the rose’s dye,
But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight.
I cannot look on any building flower,
But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips
And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour
Its sweets in the wrong sense: - Thou dost eclipse
Every delight with sweet remembering,
And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.