Stanzas / Keats, John

                                      1816
                                    STANZAS
                         ("IN DREAR-NIGHTED DECEMBER")
                                 by John Keats
STANZAS

                      I.

        In drear-nighted December,
            Too happy, happy tree,
        Thy branches ne'er remember
            Their green felicity:
          The north cannot undo them,
          With a sleety whistle through them;
          Nor frozen thawings glue them
              From budding at the prime.

                     II.

        In drear-nighted December,
            Too happy, happy brook,
        Thy bubblings ne'er remember
            Apollo's summer look;
          But with a sweet forgetting,
          They stay their crystal fretting,
          Never, never petting
              About the frozen time.

                    III.

        Ah! would 'twere so with many
            A gentle girl and boy!
        But were there ever any
            Writh'd not of passed joy?
          The feel of not to feel it,
          When there is none to heal it,
          Nor numbed sense to steel it,
              Was never said in rhyme.

                        THE END
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