Bright Star

Halfway through the week can feel really arduous. Wednesdays are taxing and anything but beautiful, what with our haphazard calendars as we wearily roll out of bed. So on one of the most difficult days of the week, we should reward ourselves with lovely words.

"Bright Star" is one of those poems that I can always turn to and it still sparkles. Maybe a different way, but it's always special, no matter how many times I've read it.

Bright Star
by John Keats

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art--
    Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
    Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
    Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
    Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

P.S. Have you seen Bright Star the movie? It's heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

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