by Keats · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A sonnet of desperate erotic supplication demanding the beloved’s whole self, soul and body, lest the poet die or lose his purposes; jealous, all-consuming love.
Connections
Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love, Lust Sexual Desire, Jealousy, Self-Knowledge, Ambition Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
I cry your mercy - pity - love! - aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalises not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmask’d, and being seen - without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole, - all - all - be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss, - those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast, -
Yourself - your soul - in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes, - the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!