Lyric Poem · Nature

Stanzas

by John Keats

Reading room

1IN a drear-nighted December,

2 Too happy, happy tree,

3Thy branches ne'er remember

4 Their green felicity:

5The north cannot undo them,

6With a sleety whistle through them;

7Nor frozen thawings glue them

8 From budding at the prime.

9In a drear-nighted December,

10 Too happy, happy brook,

11Thy bubblings ne'er remember

12 Apollo's summer look;

13But with a sweet forgetting,

14They stay their crystal fretting,

15Never, never petting

16 About the frozen time.

17Ah! would 'twere so with many

18 A gentle girl and boy!

19But were there ever any

20 Writhed not at passed joy?

21To know the change and feel it,

22When there is none to heal it,

23Nor numbed sense to steal it,

24 Was never said in rhyme.

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“Stanzas” by John Keats — quilloak.com/poems/stanzas

Quick facts

Poem: Stanzas
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 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Refrains: “IN a drear-nighted December,”“In a drear-nighted December,”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.

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: PoetryDBStanzas 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 c10cb6e6ccccec7f…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Nature Winter Summer

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