by Keats · Cluster: Christianity · Faith and Doubt · Doubt
Abstract
A sonnet on Ben Nevis’s summit where mist over chasm and sky figures man’s blindness to hell, heaven, and himself. It treats the sublime, doubt, and the limits of human knowledge.
Connections
Motifs: Fog and Smoke Themes & Concepts: Sublime, Doubt, Self-Knowledge Forms & Genres: Sonnet Settings: Scotland the Highlands
Testo integrale / Full text
Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud
Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist!
I look into the chasms, and a shroud
Vapourous doth hide them, - just so much I wist
Mankind do know of hell; I look o’erhead,
And there is sullen mist, - even so much
Mankind can tell of heaven; mist is spread
Before the earth, beneath me, - even such,
Even so vague is man’s sight of himself!
Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, -
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Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf,
I tread on them, - that all my eye doth meet
Is mist and crag, not only on this height,
But in the world of thought and mental might!