Keats
Keen, fitful gusts
Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there
Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;
The stars look very cold about the sky,
And I have many miles on foot to fare.
Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,
Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,
Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,
Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:
For I am brimfull of the friendliness
That in a little cottage I have found; 10
Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress,
And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;
Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,
And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.
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Written after meeting Leigh Hunt in the middle of October 1816, and referring to his visits to Hunt's cottage in the Vale of Health, Hampstead, where they read or discussed, among other things, Milton's Lycidas and Petrarch's sonnets to Laura. The influence of Hunt is seen in the weak rhymes in - y.
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