John Keats

Sonnet To Byron

Byron! how sweetly sad thy melody! Attuning still the soul to tenderness, As if soft Pity, with unusual stress, Had touch'd her plaintive lute, and thou, being by, Hadst caught the tones, nor suffer'd them to die. O'ershadowing sorrow doth not make thee less Delightful: thou thy griefs dost dress With a bright halo, shining beamily, As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil, Its sides are ting'd with a resplendent glow, Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail, And like fair veins in sable marble flow; Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale, The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe. 'First given in the Life, Letters &c. (1848), Volume 1, page 13, under the date December 1814. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.