bright star, would i were steadfast as thout art -
not in lone splendour hung a loft at 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 steadfast, still unchangeable,
pillow'd upon my fair lovers ripening breasts
to feel forever it's soft fall and swell,
awake forever in a sweet unrest,
still - still to hear her tender taken breath,
and so live ever - or else swoon to death.
john keats
