Keen, Fitful Gusts Are Whisp'ring Here and There
Keen, Fitful Gusts Are Whisp'ring Here and There - form Summary
Early Sonnet of Influence
This 1816 sonnet, composed during a visit to Leigh Hunt's cottage, uses the compact sonnet form to contrast a cold, wintry exterior with the speaker's inner warmth. Keats interweaves personal friendship and literary admiration—explicit nods to Milton and Petrarch—so the poem becomes a brief, focused meditation on consolation found in companionship and revered poetic models. Its sonnet shape concentrates feeling and allusion into a single resolute turn.
Read Complete AnalysesKeen, 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; 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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