Saturday, January 22, 2011

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art

I just finished watching the 2009 film "Bright Star" and can't believe I didn't watch it sooner than tonight.  The love story of John Keats and Fanny Brawne is told so absolutely, heartbreakingly beautiful...








Bright 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 stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

- John Keats, 1819

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