Poem by John Keats

* * *

Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh! O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indead,
But Death intenser - Death is Life's high meed.

1. The House of Mourning Written by Mr. Scott
2. On Hearing the Bag-Pipe and Seeing “The Stranger” Played at Inverary
3. Written in Answer to a Sonnet by J.H. Reynolds
4. What the Thrush Said
5. To a Lady Seen for a Few Moments at Vauxhall

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