To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent
by John Keats

English Romantic lyric poet. His first published volume (1817) included On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer and Sleep and Poetry; Endymion followed (1818); many of his best-known poems including The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode of a Grecian Urn and To Autumn were written between 1818-1819 and published in a volume in 1820. His letters have also come to be considered as part of his works. Keats is one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. Other Romantic poets include Burns, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Blake.

← Previous Poem John Keats Next Poem →

To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent
by John Keats

To one who has been long in city pent
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, -to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear
Catching the notes of Philomel, -an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by,
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.

← Previous Poem John Keats Next Poem →

To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent by John Keats