Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

In Drear Nighted December

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity —
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them,
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would ’twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy —
But were there ever any
Writh’d not of passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.

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MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “In Drear Nighted December.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.28 , University of Victoria, 24 September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_in_drear_nighted_december.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “In Drear Nighted December,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.28 , last modified 24th September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_in_drear_nighted_december.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “In Drear Nighted December.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.28 , last modified 24th September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_in_drear_nighted_december.html.