On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap’d-up flowers, in regions clear and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half-discover’d wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems (1817). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

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). “On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour.” First published in Poems (1817). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/john-keats/on-leaving-some-friends-at-an-early-hour/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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