Thoughts may come round us, "as of leaves budding--fruit ripening in stillness" etc.

— Keats, John (1795-1821)


Date
1817
Metaphor
Thoughts may come round us, "as of leaves budding--fruit ripening in stillness" etc.
Metaphor in Context
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
  For a long dreary season, comes a day
  Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
  Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
  The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts come round us; as of leaves
  Budding--fruit ripening in stillness
--Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves--
Sweet Sappho's cheek--a smiling infant's breath--
  The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs--
A woodland rivulet--a Poet's death
.
(ll. 1-14, p. 54)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Keats, John. Complete Poems. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Date of Entry
09/27/2003

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.