{
 "id": "john-keats/fragment-of-the-castle-builder",
 "title": "Fragment of “The Castle Builder”",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Keats",
 "poet_slug": "john-keats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats",
 "book_slug": "life-letters-and-literary-remains",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1848,
  "venue": "Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats (1848)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/lifelettersliter00keat",
   "https://archive.org/details/lifelettersliter02keat"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-keats_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/completepoetical01keat",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005261190"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To-night I’ll have my friar⁠—let me think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About my room⁠—I’ll have it in the pink;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just in its mid-life in the midst of June",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should look thro’ four large windows and display",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To see what else the moon alone can show;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the night-breeze doth softly let us know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My terrace is well bower’d with oranges.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A guitar-ribband and a lady’s glove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All finish’d but some ringlets of her hair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A glorious folio of Anacreon;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A skull upon a mat of roses lying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ink’d purple with a song concerning dying;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of passion-flower;⁠—just in time there sails",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A cloud across the moon,⁠—the lights bring in!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And see what more my phantasy can win.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The draperies are so, as though they had",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Been made for Cleopatra’s winding-sheet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And opposite the steadfast eye doth meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In letters raven-sombre, you may trace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old “Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greek busts and statuary have ever been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore ’tis sure a want of Attic taste",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I should rather love a Gothic waste",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter’s clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My table-coverlits of Jason’s fleece",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My ebon sofas should delicious be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With down from Leda’s cygnet progeny.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My pictures all Salvator’s, save a few",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Titian’s portraiture, and one, though new,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Haydon’s in its fresh magnificence.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My wine⁠—O good! ’tis here at my desire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I must sit to supper with my friar.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}