Fragment of an Ode to Maia

John Keats (1795–1821) · Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats · 1848

Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O, give me their old vigour, and unheard
Save of the quiet Primrose, and the span
Of heaven and few ears,
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.

Where this text comes from

First published in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats (1848). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/john-keats_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L14.

Cite this poem

John Keats (1795–1821). “Fragment of an Ode to Maia.” First published in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats (1848). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/john-keats/fragment-of-an-ode-to-maia/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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