{"id":328,"date":"2015-02-27T06:17:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T06:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/englishhistory.net\/?p=328"},"modified":"2015-03-19T20:35:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T20:35:04","slug":"bright-star-would-i-were-steadfast-as-thou-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/keats\/poetry\/bright-star-would-i-were-steadfast-as-thou-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art by John Keats"},"content":{"rendered":"

This famous sonnet was written by Keats in Joseph Severn’s copy of The Poetical Works of William Shakespeare opposite the poem ‘A Lover’s Complaint’. Because it was written during Keats and Severn’s voyage to Italy, many people (including Severn) believed it be Keats’s last poem. It was actually titled ‘Keats’s Last Sonnet’ by Milnes in his 1848 biography of Keats. However, careful studies by biographers \/ critics have dated its composition to spring 1819. It was first published in a newspaper in 1838, seventeen years after Keats’s death.<\/p>\n

\"crop

crop from the original manuscript of the ‘Bright star!’ sonnet in John Keats’s handwriting<\/p><\/div>\n

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art\u2014
\nNot in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
\nAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,
\nLike Nature\u2019s patient sleepless Eremite,
\nThe moving waters at their priestlike task
\nOf pure ablution round earth\u2019s human shores,
\nOr gazing on the new soft fallen mask
\nOf snow upon the mountains and the moors\u2014
\nNo\u2014yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
\nPillow\u2019d upon my fair love\u2019s ripening breast,
\nTo feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
\nAwake for ever in a sweet unrest,
\nStill, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
\nAnd so live ever\u2014or else swoon to death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This famous sonnet was written by Keats in Joseph Severn’s copy of The Poetical Works of William Shakespeare opposite the poem ‘A Lover’s Complaint’. Because it was written during Keats and Severn’s voyage to Italy, many people (including Severn) believed it be Keats’s last poem. It was actually titled ‘Keats’s Last Sonnet’ by Milnes in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}