Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

Character of C. B.

He is to weet a melancholy carle,
Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,
As hath the seeded thistle, when in parle
It holds the zephyr, ere it sendeth fair
Its light balloons into the summer air;
Thereto his beard had not begun to bloom,
No brush had touch’d his chin or razor sheer;
No care had touch’d his cheek with mortal doom,
But new he was and bright as scarf from Persian loom.

Ne cared he for wine, or half-and-half,
Ne cared he for fish, or flesh, or fowl,
And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;
He ’sdeign’d the swine-herd at the wassail-bowl;
Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl,
Ne with sly lemans in the scorner’s chair;
But after water-brooks this pilgrim’s soul
Panted, and all his food was woodland air,
Though he would oft-times feed on gilliflowers rare.

The slang of cities in no wise he knew,
Tipping the wink to him was heathen Greek;
He sipp’d no olden Tom, or ruin blue,
Or nantz, or cherry-brandy, drank full meek
By many a damsel hoarse and rouge of cheek;
Nor did he know each aged watchman’s beat,
Nor in obscured purlieus would he seek
For curled Jewesses with ancles neat,
Who as they walk abroad make tinkling with their feet.

🗙 Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “Character of C. B..” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.8 , University of Victoria, 18 January 2021. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_character_of_cb.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “Character of C. B.,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.8 , last modified 18th January 2021. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_character_of_cb.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “Character of C. B..” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.8 , last modified 18th January 2021. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_character_of_cb.html.