February 23: Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art

[February Feels Like]

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,

   Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

   Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

   And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

---

John Keats (died on this day, 1821)