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Sonnet IV: How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time!

By John Keats

Topics: classic

How many bards gild the lapses of time!     A few of them have ever been the food     Of my delighted fancy, I could brood     Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:     And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,     These will in throngs before my mind intrude:     But no confusion, no disturbance rude     Do they occasion; 'tis a pleasing chime.     So the unnumbered sounds that evening store;     The songs of birds the whispering of the leaves     The voice of waters the great bell that heaves     With solemn sound, and thousand others more,     That distance of recognizance bereaves,     Makes pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

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"How many bards gild the lapses of time!..."

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Author:John Keats

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"How many bards gild the lapses of time!..." by John Keats

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John Keats

About John Keats

John Keats (1795–1821) was an English Romantic poet whose odes—"Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "To Autumn"—are among the most celebrated in the language. Despite dying of tuberculosis at 25, he produced work of extraordinary sensory richness and philosophical depth.

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