Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

References to this poem

King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE I

  • Steph. If shame can on a soldier’s vein-swoll’n front
  • Steph. Spread deeper crimson than the battle’s toil,
  • Steph. Blush in your casing helmets! for see, see!
  • Steph. Yonder my chivalry, my pride of war,
  • Steph. Wrench’d with an iron hand from firm array,
  • Steph. Are routed loose about the plashy meads,
  • Steph. Of honour forfeit. O that my known voice
  • Steph. Could reach your dastard ears, and fright you more!
  • Steph. Fly, cowards, fly! gloucester is at your backs!
  • Steph. Throw your slack bridles o’er the flurried manes,
  • Steph. Scampering to death at last! 1-knt. The enemy
  • $1-knt. Bears his flaunt standard close upon their rear.
  • $2-knt. Sure of a bloody prey, seeing the fens
  • $2-knt. Will swamp them girth-deep.
  • Steph. Over head and ears,
  • Steph. No matter! ’tis a gallant enemy;
  • Steph. How like a comet he goes streaming on.
  • Steph. But we must plague him in the flank, — hey, friends?
  • Steph. We are well breath’d, — follow! deredvers!
  • Steph. What is the monstrous bugbear that can fright
  • Steph. Baldwin? bal. No scare-crow, but the fortunate star
  • Bal. Of boisterous chester, whose fell truncheon now
  • Bal. Points level to the goal of victory.
  • Bal. This way he comes, and if you would maintain
  • Bal. Your person unaffronted by vile odds,
  • Bal. Take horse, my lord.
  • Steph. And which way spur for life?
  • Steph. Now I thank heaven I am in the toils,
  • Steph. That soldiers may bear witness how my arm
  • Steph. Can burst the meshes. Not the eagle more
  • Steph. Loves to beat up against a tyrannous blast,
  • Steph. Than I to meet the torrent of my foes.
  • Steph. Carve it upon my ’scutcheon’d sepulchre.
  • Steph. On, fellow soldiers! Earl of Redvers, back!
  • Steph. Not twenty Earls of Chester shall brow-beat
  • Steph. The diadem.

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MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE I.” 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_king_stephen_act_i_scene_i.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE I,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.28 , last modified 24th September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_king_stephen_act_i_scene_i.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE I.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.28 , last modified 24th September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_king_stephen_act_i_scene_i.html.