John Keats

Sonnet: After Dark Vapors Have Oppress'd Our Plains

After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle South, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. The anxious month, relieved of its pains, Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May; The eyelids with the passing coolness play Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains. The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves Budding -- fruit ripening in stillness -- Autumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves -- Sweet Sappho's cheek -- a smiling infant's breath -- The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs -- A woodland rivulet -- a Poet's death. 'This sonnet appeared in The Examiner for the 23rd of February 1817, and is dated January 1817 in Lord Houghton's editions. In line 5 The Examiner reads 'relieving of;' his Lordship reads 'relieved from,' and again 'And' for 'The' at the beginning of line 9, and 'sleeping' for 'smiling' at line 12. The word 'relieving' in the earlier version must, I think, have been a slip, and not an intentional use of 'relieve' as an intransitive verb, though Keats was perhaps capable of such use in his early strife after freshness of speech. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.