On ⸻

Think not of it, sweet one, so;⁠—
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any⁠—any where.

Do not look so sad, sweet one,⁠—
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop, then it is gone,
Oh! ’twas born to die!

Still so pale? then dearest weep;
Weep, I’ll count the tears,
For each will I invent a bliss
For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are more tender still.

Yet⁠—as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses;
E’en let us too; but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.

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–#L20.

Cite this poem

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

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