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Lyric Poem · Nature

Happy Is England! I Could Be Content

by John Keats

1Happy is England! I could be content

2To see no other verdure than its own;

3To feel no other breezes than are blown

4Through its tall woods with high romances blent;

5Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment

6For skies Italian, and an inward groan

7To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,

8And half forget what world or worldling meant.

9Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;

10Enough their simple loveliness for me,

11Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging;

12Yet do I often warmly burn to see

13Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,

14And float with them about the summer waters.

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Quick facts

Poem
Happy Is England! I Could Be Content
Poet
John Keats
Length
14 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Summer

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
14 lines · one 14-line stanza
Line length
Lines run 9-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
John Keats1795–1821
Source record
PoetryDBHappy Is England! I Could Be Content by john-keats, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 121e259f6ec127e4
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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