To Fanny: 'I cry your mercy—pity—love—ay, love!'

by John Keats · (no date)
Published 01/07/1880

I cry your mercy—pity—love—aye, love!

      Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

      Unmask'd, and being seen—without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!

      That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,

      That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,—

Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,

      Withhold no atom's atom, or I die,

Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,

      Forget, in the mist of idle misery,

Life's purposes—the palate of my mind

Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

#courtly love #john keats #passionate longing #unrequited love

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