On Visiting the Tomb of Burns
by John KeatsThe town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,
The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold -- strange -- as in a dream
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-liv'd, paly summer is but won
From winter's ague for one hour's gleam;
Through sapphire warm their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done.
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride
Cast wan upon it? Burns! with honour due
I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow, hide
Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.
This was written in Dumfries, on July 1, 1818. Keats said that he wrote this sonnet in a 'strange mood, half asleep', and it's a good example of how the mood in which a poem is written can sometimes carry over into the poem.
