To the Nile
To the Nile - context Summary
Sonnet Competition 1818
Written as part of a friendly sonnet-writing challenge with Shelley and Leigh Hunt in 1818 and published in 1822, Keats’s "To the Nile" is a compact sonnet that addresses the river as both life-giver and paradox. It balances praise of the Nile’s fertility with doubts about perceived barrenness, exploring how ignorance shapes landscape and reputation. The poem reflects Keats’s taste for exotic subjects and his technical control within a poetic contest.
Read Complete AnalysesSon of the old Moon-mountains African! Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile! We call thee fruitful, and that very while A desert fills our seeing's inward span: Nurse of swart nations since the world began, Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan? O may dark fancies err! They surely do; 'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste The pleasant sunrise. Green isles hast thou too, And to the sea as happily dost haste.
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