14 SWEET PEAS

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight,

With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,

And taper fingers catching at all things,

To bind them all about with tiny rings.

Linger a while upon some bending planks

That lean against a streamlet’s rushy banks,

And watch intently Nature’s gentle doings;

They will be found softer than ringdove’s cooings.

How silent comes the water round that bend!

Not the minutest whisper does it send

To the overhanging sallows; blades of grass

Slowly across the checkered shadows pass.

( John Keats )

Biography

John Keats (1795-1821) was of humble birth, the son of a London stablekeeper. He lived at the time of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Leigh Hunt,from all of whom he gathered inspiration. His fame did not come while he was living, but the three small volumes of poems he wrote in his brief life have given him a high place among English poets. He had a passion for beauty, which found expression in all his poetry. On account of failing health he went, in 1820, to Rome, where he died the year following. “Sweet Peas” is from one of his earliest poems, called “I Stood on Tiptoe on a Little Hill.”

Word list

flus : pale pink and lavender

taper : delicately pointed

rushy : banks with plants and weeds along the shore

sallow : willow tree

You Practice

Answer the following questions.

1) Why does the poet say sweet peas are “on tiptoe for a fligh”?

2) What are the wings of the sweet pea?

3) How does the poet tell of the stillness of the moving water?

4) What picture does the last line of the poem give you?

5) What does the poet say is “softer than ringdove’s cooings”?