Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton’s Hair
Ode.

Chief of organic Numbers!
Old Scholar of the Spheres!
Thy spirit never slumbers,
But rolls about our ears
For ever and for ever:
O, what a mad endeavour
Worketh he,
Who, to thy sacred and ennobled hearse,
Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse
And melody!

How heavenward thou soundedst
Live Temple of sweet noise;
And discord unconfoundedst:
Giving delight new joys,
And pleasure nobler pinions—
O, where are thy dominions!
Lend thine ear
To a young Delian oath,—aye, by thy soul,
By all that from thy mortal lips did roll;
And by the kernel of thine earthly love,
Beauty, in things on earth and things above;
When every childish fashion
Has vanish’d from my rhyme,
Will I, grey-gone in passion,
Leave to an after-time
Hymning and harmony
Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life;
But vain is now the burning, and the strife,
Pangs are in vain—until I grow high-rife
With old philosophy
And mad with glimpses at futurity!

For many years my offerings must be hush’d.
When I do speak I’ll think upon this hour,
Because I feel my forehead hot and flush’d—
Even at the simplest vassal of thy power,—
A lock of thy bright hair—
Sudden it came,
And I was startled when I caught thy name
Coupled so unaware;
Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood,—
Methought I had beheld it from the Flood.

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton’s Hair
Ode..” 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_lines_on_seeing_a_lock_of.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton’s Hair
Ode.,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.29 , last modified 26th October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_lines_on_seeing_a_lock_of.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton’s Hair
Ode..” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.29 , last modified 26th October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_lines_on_seeing_a_lock_of.html.