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Home  »  English Poetry II  »  539. The Human Seasons

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

John Keats

539. The Human Seasons


FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of Man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness—to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook:—

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forego his mortal nature.