Poem of the month

selected by David Underdown

Lines from Endymion

by John Keats (1795-1821)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

This is an extract from Keats’s epic poem Endymion. It was written when he was still only twenty-three, a year before he met Fanny Brawne and started to produce the shorter poems for which he is famous. Not many people read Endymion nowadays. At 4000 lines it challenges the attention span of the modern reader, and its classical subject matter, couched in strongly rhymed heroic couplets, is unfashionable. And yet its opening line is as familiar (and true) as any in the English language.