28 Jan 200 years ago today in 1821 John Keats Died
200 years ago today
200 years ago today, in 1821 John Keats, poet, died. The eldest of 4 children, Keats was born in London on 31 October 1795.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
– John Keats
Just 25 years old
John Keats was only 25 years old when he died on Friday the 23rd February 1821.
During his lifetime he published just 54 poems in three slim publications and yet he is one of the most famous and beloved of the English poets. Even now 200 years after his death.
To read more about his life I highly recommend this Poetry Foundation article on his life
“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art”
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
John Keats
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