The mind's palate may lose "its gust"
— Keats, John (1795-1821)
Author
Work Title
Date
1848
Metaphor
The mind's palate may lose "its gust"
Metaphor in Context
I cry your mercy--pity--love!--aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes 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!
(ll. 1-14, p. 374)
Merciful love that tantalizes 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!
(ll. 1-14, p. 374)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Keats, John. Complete Poems. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Date of Entry
09/19/2003
