Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

Fill for me a brimming bowl

Fill for me a brimming bowl,
And let me in it drown my soul:
But put therein some drug design’d
To banish Woman from my mind.
For I want not the stream inspiring,
That fills the mind with lewd desiring;
But I want as deep a draught
As e’er from Lethe’s waves was quaff’d;
From my despairing heart to charm
The image of the fairest form
That e’er my rev’ling eyes beheld,
That e’er my wand’ring fancy spell’d!

In vain! away I cannot chace
The melting softness of that face —
The beaminess of those bright eyes —
That breast, earth’s only paradise!

My sight will never more be blest,
For all I see has lost its zest;
Nor with delight can I explore
The classic page — the muse’s lore.

Had she but known how beat my heart
And with one smile reliev’d its smart,
I should have felt a sweet relief,
I should have felt “ the joy of grief ”!
Yet as a Tuscan ’mid the snow
Of Lapland thinks on sweet Arno;
So for ever shall she be
The halo of my memory.

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “Fill for me a brimming bowl.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.29 , University of Victoria, 26 October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_fill_for_me_a_brimming_bowl.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “Fill for me a brimming bowl,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.29 , last modified 26th October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_fill_for_me_a_brimming_bowl.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “Fill for me a brimming bowl.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.29 , last modified 26th October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_fill_for_me_a_brimming_bowl.html.