To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses - context Summary
Gift of Roses from Wells
This sonnet was written as a personal thank-you to Keats's friend Charles Wells after Wells sent him roses. It frames the gift through pastoral imagery and compares wild and garden roses, then elevates the friend’s present as conveying "peace, and truth, and friendliness." The poem functions as an intimate response and public dedication, showing Keats’s habit of turning personal gestures into small, lyric commemorations of friendship.
Read Complete AnalysesAs late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew From his lush clover covert;—when anew Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields; I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields, A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew As is the wand that Queen Titania wields. And, as I feasted on its fragrancy, I thought the garden-rose it far excelled; But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me, My sense with their deliciousness was spelled: Soft voices had they, that with tender plea Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.
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