Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

On Fame (Fame, like a wayward girl)

  • Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
  • To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
  • But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
  • And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;
  • She is a gipsey, will not speak to those
  • Who have not learnt to be content without her;
  • A jilt, whose ear was never whisper’d close,
  • Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;
  • A very gipsey is she, Nilus-born,
  • Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;
  • Ye love-sick bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
  • Ye artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are!
  • Make your best bow to her and bid adieu;
  • Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

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MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “On Fame (Fame, like a wayward girl).” 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_on_fame_like_a_wayward_girl.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “On Fame (Fame, like a wayward girl),” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_on_fame_like_a_wayward_girl.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “On Fame (Fame, like a wayward girl).” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_on_fame_like_a_wayward_girl.html.