John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821 / London, England)

German translated by

Johann Joseph Claßen

Stern

Nach John Keats:
Bright Star

Stern! wäre ich gleich dir beständig nur –
Nicht ruhte mehr beständig hehr aus Nacht
Mein Blick auf einsam glänzender Natur
Und schwände lang hin in Alleinseinspracht.

Nicht ruhte er im Meer, des’ Priesterakt
Rein wäscht, was küstenweit des Menschen Werk;
Auf Schneenachtsweite nicht, wie keusch und nackt
Sie glitzert, angeschmiegt an Moor und Berg.

Nein – gleich beständig ruhte dauerhaft
Der Blick auf meines Liebchens weißer Brust:
Wie hingebettet sie sich hebt und strafft,

Bereit auf immer der versüßten Lust,
Nur diesem Atmensakt ganz nah devot
Zu ruhen – oder schwinden in den Tod.

Sometimes I wonder about the misconceptions some of you have about poetry and poets, but your garbled interpretations cause my wonder to dissipate in the fog of incomprehension I detect in your postings!

Alert to Albert Ahearn- 'His Last Sonnet' by John Keats is NOT a Shakespearean sonnet. Fourteen lines make a sonnet, OK! But when divided into an octave (eight lines rhyming ABABCDCD) - art / night / apart / eremite / task / shores / mask / moors // and a sestet (six lines rhyming EFEFGG) - able / breast / swell / unrest / breath / death, it is a PETRARCHAN sonnet! Remember that your high school teacher impressed upon your adolescent mind that Shakespeare wrote sonnets composed of three quatrains (four lines each) and a couplet (two lines) that summed up or resolved the problem raised in the three preceding quatrains!

The poet differs from the persona, the 'I' character in the sonnet that the poet creates to express the thoughts and feelings that many unwary readers take to be the poet expressing himself as the lover or whomever he pretends to be. Recall if you can that teacher who told you that the term 'persons' literally means 'mask! '

And forget Fanny Brawn or whomever else your restless mind and imagination construes as Keats's love interest in real life. Cite your sources, boy! Your vulgar line about the half-naked wench stretched out on the couch leaves most of us in the dark!

For me Keats is the most romantic hero in poetic terms. If this was infact his last sonnet before his death at such a young age, then it is written in the heightened spirit of his inspirations muse! Love and Death...our greatest preoccupation in life, the closer we get, the more inspired we are. When I read him in the 90's, that is when I realised what poetry was all about. Not actively constructed, but euphorically inspired, by death, by love, by life.

An amazingly sad and beautiful read.

Thanks John

Smiling at you

Tai

Considering the fact that Keats died at 26 years old after a long, malingering battle against TB, his preoccupation with death and his imminent separation from his beloved Fanny Brawn is quite understandable and sensitively penned.

In Keats there is a melancholy (sometimes conscious, sometimes unconsciously expressed) that pervades much of his work. This melancholy proceeds from his frustration at his impending death which will cut off the full development of his poetry, and his sexual frustration. In this poem there is the paradox that he would exchange his eternal genius for love, but love which is like that of the lovers in the Ode to A Grecian Urn - eternally the same, never fully realised, but at the same time never frustrated. It is the poem of a man who passionately wants full sexual love, but at the same time fears it, and it is no less a poem for that. Compare the poem 'When I have fears that I may cease to be...' which deals with both frustrations.

Sort of brings to light, the depth of character in steadfastness, a shining star in the heavens.

A sensuous sonnet heightened to the stature of steadfast Star shows how passionate Keats is! No lover in the world would ever forget this great poet forever!

The poet is stating that he wished he could be as constant as the eternal star, and he says it in his own inimitable way.The message is summed up in the line, awake forever in a sweet unrest. Awake like the constant star, or if not and so live for ever - or else swoon to death. He is in such a state of joy, that he wished he could remain so forever; as the constant star. It is a very beautifull poem.

daphne Grant