To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent
To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent - form Summary
A Sonnet of Escape
Keats uses the sonnet form to compress a movement from urban confinement to restorative nature. The poem addresses someone "long in city pent," then swiftly opens onto outdoor pleasures—blue sky, grassy lair, nightingale song—and closes with a poignant image of transience. The tight fourteen-line structure concentrates contrast and emotional relief, making the final simile of an "angel's tear" feel inevitable and quietly elegiac.
Read Complete AnalysesTo one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven,--to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair And gentle tale of love and languishment? Returning home at evening, with an ear Catching the notes of Philomel,--an eye Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, He mourns that day so soon has glided by: E'en like the passage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently.
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