Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

How many bards gild the lapses of time

  • How many bards gild the lapses of time!
  • A few of them have ever been the food
  • Of my delighted fancy, — I could brood
  • Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:
  • And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,
  • These will in throngs before my mind intrude:
  • But no confusion, no disturbance rude
  • Do they occasion; ’tis a pleasing chime.
  • So the unnumber’d sounds that evening store;
  • The songs of birds — the whisp’ring of the leaves —
  • The voice of waters — the great bell that heaves
  • With solemn sound, — and thousand others more,
  • That distance of recognizance bereaves,
  • Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “How many bards gild the lapses of time.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.26 , University of Victoria, 12 July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_how_many_bards_gild_the_lapses.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “How many bards gild the lapses of time,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_how_many_bards_gild_the_lapses.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “How many bards gild the lapses of time.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_how_many_bards_gild_the_lapses.html.