His Last Sonnet
His Last Sonnet - meaning Summary
Yearning for Steadfast Love
Keats addresses a bright star as an emblem of constancy but rejects its aloof permanence in favor of an unchanging presence at his beloved’s breast. The sonnet frames a desire for eternal intimacy: to remain awake, feeling her breathing and the rhythm of love, rather than distant and solitary. It balances the wish for lasting connection with the ultimatum of living forever in sweet unrest or surrendering to death.
Read Complete AnalysesBright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! - Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors - No -yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever -or else swoon to death.
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