The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/Sonnet: 'After dark vapours have oppress'd our plains'
SONNET
Printed in The Examiner, February 23, 1817, and dated by Lord Houghton, when reprinting it, 'January, 1817.'
After dark vapours have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved ⟨of⟩ its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains.
And calmest thoughts come round us; as, of leaves
Budding,—fruit ripening in stillness,—Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,—
Sweet Sappho's cheek,—a sleeping infant's breath,—
The gradual sand that through an hourglass runs,—
A woodland rivulet,—a Poet's death.