Lyric Poem · Dreams & Sleep
To My Brothers
by John Keats
1Small, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals,
2And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
3Like whispers of the household gods that keep
4A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.
5And while for rhymes I search around the poles,
6Your eyes are fixed, as in poetic sleep,
7Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
8That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
9This is your birthday, Tom, and I rejoice
10That thus it passes smoothly, quietly:
11Many such eves of gently whispering noise
12May we together pass, and calmly try
13What are this world's true joys,—ere the great Voice
14From its fair face shall bid our spirits fly.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“To My Brothers” by John Keats — quilloak.com/poems/to-my-brothers
Quick facts
- Poem
- To My Brothers
- Poet
- John Keats
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Dreams & Sleep, Peace
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
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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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
- PoetryDBTo My Brothers 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 5a75c55eab64652b…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.