Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

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References to this poem

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,
Nibble their toasts, and cool their tea with sighs;
Or else forget the purpose of the night,
Forget their tea, forget their appetite.
See, with cross’d arms they sit — ah! hapless crew,
The fire is going out and no one rings
For coals, and therefore no coals Betty brings.
A fly is in the milk-pot. Must he die
Circled by a humane society?
No, no; there, Mr. Werter takes his spoon,
Inverts it, dips the handle, and lo! soon
The little struggler, sav’d from perils dark,
Across the teaboard draws a long wet mark.
Romeo! Arise! take snuffers by the handle;
There’s a large cauliflower in each candle.
A winding sheet — Ah, me! I must away
To No. 7, just beyond the Circus gay.
“Alas, my friend, your coat sits very well:
Where may your tailor live?” “I may not tell —
O pardon me — I’m absent now and then.
Where might my tailor live? — I say again
I cannot tell, let me no more be teas’d;
He lives in Wapping, might live where he pleas’d.”

× Cite this page:

MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.” 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_pensive_they_sit_and_roll_their.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.27 , last modified 19th August 2024. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_pensive_they_sit_and_roll_their.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.27 , last modified 19th August 2024. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_pensive_they_sit_and_roll_their.html.