John Keats

Fill for me a brimming bowl

Fill for me a brimming bowl,

And let me in it drown my soul:

But put therein some drug design’d

To banish Woman from my mind.

For I want not the stream inspiring,

That heats the sense with lewd desiring;

But I want as deep a draught

As e’er from Lethe’s waves was quaft,

From my despairing breast to charm

The image of the fairest form

That e’er my rev’ling eyes beheld,

That e’er my wand’ring fancy spell’d!

’Tis vain — away I cannot chace

The melting softness of that face —

The beaminess of those bright eyes —

That breast, earth’s only paradise!

My sight will never more be blest,

For all I see has lost its zest;

Nor with delight can I explore

The classic page — the muse’s lore.

Had she but known how beat my heart

And with one smile reliev’d its smart,

I should have felt a sweet relief,

I should have felt "the joy of grief"!

Yet as a Tuscan ’mid the snow

Of Lapland thinks on sweet Arno;

So for ever shall she be

The halo of my memory.