Une mort de poète

After dark vapours have oppressed our plains
       For a long dreary season, comes a day
       Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieving from its pains, 
       Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May, 

       The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains.
And calmest thoughts come round us — as of leaves
       Budding — fruit ripening in stillness — autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves —
Sweet Sappho’s cheek — a sleeping infant’s breath —
       The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs —
A woodland rivulet — a Poet’s death.






(John Keats.)