Lyric Poem · Nature
In Drear-Nighted December
by John Keats
1In drear-nighted December,
2Too happy, happy tree,
3Thy branches ne'er remember
4Their green felicity:
5The north cannot undo them
6With a sleety whistle through them;
7Nor frozen thawings glue them
8 From budding at the prime.
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“In Drear-Nighted December” by John Keats — quilloak.com/poems/in-drear-nighted-december
Quick facts
- Poem
- In Drear-Nighted December
- Poet
- John Keats
- Length
- 24 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Winter, 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
- 24 lines · 3 octaves
- Line length
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 6), consistent with trimeter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
- Refrain
- “In drear-nighted December,”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
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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
- PoetryDBIn Drear-Nighted December 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 0cd564ebd65c360f…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.