On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again (thing)

This was written by John Keats on January 28, 1818. It is a Petrarchan sonnet, but it ends with a heroic couplet as a Shakespearen sonnet would.

Keats wrote a number of sonnets in praise of other poets, but this is the only one he wrote specifically about Shakespeare. Others include:

• John Milton: "Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair"
  
• Homer: "To Homer"
  
• Edmund Spenser: "Spenser, a jealous honorer of thine," and "Imitation of Spenser"
  
• Lord Byron: "To Lord Byron"
  
• Leigh Hunt: "To Leigh Hunt, Esq.", and "On the Story of Rimini",
  
• Robert Burns: "On Visiting the Tomb of Burns", and "This mortal body of a thousand days"
  
• Thomas Chatterton: "Oh Chatterton! how very sad thy fate"
  
• George Chapman: "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"

Actually, this is a tribute of sorts to both King Lear and Edmund Spenser. The "Romance" in the first line would be Keats' old favorite, "The Faerie Queene", which he set aside rereading to reread King Lear instead.

On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair plumed syren, queen of far-away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute.
Adieu! for once agan, the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through ; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakesperean fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream:
But, when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new phoenix wings to fly at my desire.