John Keats

Sharing Eve's Apple

1. O Blush not so! O blush not so! Or I shall think you knowing; And if you smile the blushing while, Then maidenheads are going. 2. There's a blush for want, and a blush for shan't, And a blush for having done it; There's a blush for thought, and a blush for nought, And a blush for just begun it. 3. O sigh not so! O sigh not so! For it sounds of Eve's sweet pippin; By these loosen'd lips you have tasted the pips And fought in an amorous nipping. 4. Will you play once more at nice-cut-core, For it only will last our youth out, And we have the prime of the kissing time, We have not one sweet tooth out. 5. There's a sigh for aye, and a sigh for nay, And a sigh for "I can't bear it!" O what can be done, shall we stay or run? O cut the sweet apple and share it! 'This song, belonging to the year 1818, has not, I believe, been published till now (1881). It seems to me neither more nor less worthy of Keats's reputation than the Daisy's Song in the Extracts from an Opera; but, notwithstanding the brilliant qualities of some of the stanzas, I should have hesitated to be instrumental in adding it to the poet's published works, had it not been handed about in manuscript and more than once copied. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.