Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

Lines on the Mermaid Tavern

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host’s Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day
Mine host’s sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer’s old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new-old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the zodiac.

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe’s weed and Hermes’ feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames burn under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomime;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and stormwreck’d hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress’d
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and Muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; —
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and Muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night —
Both together — let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath’d with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass tomb.

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern.” 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_the_mermaid_tavern.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.29 , last modified 26th October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_lines_on_the_mermaid_tavern.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.29 , last modified 26th October 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_lines_on_the_mermaid_tavern.html.