Poem of the Day: In Drear-Nighted December

by John Keats

This week, Poem of the Day is presenting a series of poems relating to December. Today's second is by John Keats, an English Romantic poet -- just like yesterday's. Maybe they really liked Winter? Or, possibly, liked to espouse their dislike of it -- certainly, the title suggests that.

Either way, they wrote about it, and here it is:

In drear-nighted December,
   Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
   Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
   From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,
   Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
   Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
   About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many
   A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
   Writh'd not at passing joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
   Was never said in rhyme.

Originally written in December 1817 and first published in 1829. The version reproduced here combines the varied formatting (and two differences in spelling) from a couple of different sources into a version I prefer. If they differ -- and therefore, clearly, neither is definitive -- why shouldn't I?