Bright Star Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure, ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors: No—yet still steadfast, evergreen, Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

• John Keats