Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

On Fame (How fever’d is the man)

  • How fever’d is the man, who cannot look
  • Upon his mortal days with temperate blood,
  • Who vexes all the leaves of his life’s book,
  • And robs his fair name of its maidenhood;
  • It is as if the rose should pluck herself,
  • Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom,
  • As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,
  • Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom
  • But the rose leaves herself upon the briar,
  • For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed,
  • And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire,
  • The undisturbed lake has crystal space;
  • Why then should man, teasing the world for grace,
  • Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

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MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “On Fame (How fever’d is the man).” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.27 , University of Victoria, 19 August 2024. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_on_fame_how_fevered_is_the.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “On Fame (How fever’d is the man),” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.27 , last modified 19th August 2024. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_on_fame_how_fevered_is_the.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “On Fame (How fever’d is the man).” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.27 , last modified 19th August 2024. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_on_fame_how_fevered_is_the.html.