Lines on the Mermaid Tavern
Lines on the Mermaid Tavern - context Summary
Tribute to Elizabethan Company
Written in 1819 and published in 1820 in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, Keats’s "Lines on the Mermaid Tavern" is a nostalgic tribute to earlier English poets associated with the legendary Mermaid Tavern. It imagines a convivial afterlife where poetic spirits drink, feast, and toast the Mermaid, linking Keats to Elizabethan predecessors like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and celebrating literary fellowship and tradition.
Read Complete AnalysesSouls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can. I have heard that on a day Mine host's sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till An astrologer's old quill To a sheepskin gave the story, Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new old sign Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac. Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
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