Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there
Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and thereAmong the bushes half leafless, and dry;The stars look very cold about the sky,And I have many miles on foot to fare.Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:For I am brimfull of the friendlinessThat in a little cottage I have found;Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress,And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.
Words in this poem
- fitful a.
- Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable. [From 7th Fit.]
- drearily adv.
- Gloomily; dismally.
- lair n.
- A place in which to lie or rest; especially, the bed or couch of a wild beast. [OE. leir, AS. leger; akin to D. leger, G. lager couch, lair, OHG. laga, Goth. ligrs, and to E. lie. See Lie to be prostrate, and cf. Layer, Leaguer.]
- brimfull a.
- Full to the brim; completely full; ready to overflow.
- friendliness n.
- The condition or quality of being friendly. Sir P. Sidney.
- laura n.
- A number of hermitages or cells in the same neighborhood occupied by anchorites who were under the same superior. C. Kingsley.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems 1817, Project Gutenberg ebook #8209; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Keats, Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there, in Poems (1817) (1817), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8209, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/keats-1817/keen-fitful-gusts-are-whisp-ring-here-and-there.html, id L20521.
Form and metre
Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAA-BACDCDCD thereA · dryB · skyB · fareA · airA · drearily · highB · lairA · friendlinessC · foundD · distressC · drown'dD · dressC · crown'dD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Among the bushes half leafless, and dry; | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| The stars look very cold about the sky, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And I have many miles on foot to fare. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Or of those silver lamps that burn on high, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| For I am brimfull of the friendliness | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| That in a little cottage I have found; | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘˘/ |
| And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.