Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art
John Keats (1795–1821)
written 1819; printed 1838

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-004006 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/004006
Rights: Written in 1819 and first printed in 1838; the author died in 1821. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Standard Ebooks, https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-keats/poetry/text/single-page (retrieved 2026-10-11)
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/keats-bright-star

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Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art!
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors:
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.