The Rating of Poets • The Rating of Poems
Poem by John Keats
Fragment of an Ode to Maia
Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O, give me their old vigour, and unheard
Save of the quiet Primrose, and the span
Of heaven and few ears,
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
Copied in a letter to Reynolds, dated May 3, 1818, in which Keats says: 'With respect to the affections and Poetry you must know by a sympathy my thoughts that way, and I dare say these few lines will be but a ratification: I wrote them on May day—and intend to finish the ode all in good time;' a purpose apparently never accomplished.John Keats
John Keats's other poems:
- Song (“I had a dove and the sweet dove died”)
- Song Written on a Blank Page in Beaumont and Fletcher's Works between 'Cupid's Revenge' and 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'
- A Spenserian Stanza
- Sweet, Sweet Is the Greeting of Eyes
- The Eve of St. Agnes
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