Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

To Ailsa Rock

  • Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid!
  • Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowls’ screams!
  • When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?
  • When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?
  • How long is’t since the mighty power bid
  • Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?
  • Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams,
  • Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid?
  • Thou answer’st not; for thou art dead asleep;
  • Thy life is but two dead eternities —
  • The last in air, the former in the deep;
  • First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies;
  • Drown’d wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep —
  • Another cannot wake thy giant size!

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “To Ailsa Rock.” 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_to_ailsa_rock.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “To Ailsa Rock,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_to_ailsa_rock.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “To Ailsa Rock.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_to_ailsa_rock.html.