Feb 28 2009
John Keats, Human Seasons
John Keats died of tuberculosis on February 23, 1821. He was 25-years-old. He is one of the most well-known poets of the Romantic movement along with Shelley and Byron.
The poem The Human Seasons was written in 1818 and was published in Literary Pocket-Book by Leigh Hunt in 1819.
The Human Seasons
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness–to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
