Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,

Nibble their toast, and cool their tea with sighs,

Or else forget the purpose of the night,

Forget their tea — forget their appetite.

See with cross’d arms they sit — ah! happy crew,

The fire is going out and no one rings

For coals, and therefore no coals Betty brings.

A fly is in the milk-pot — must he die

By a humane society?

No, no; there Mr. Werter takes his spoon,

Inserts it, dips the handle, and lo! soon

The little straggler, sav’d from perils dark,

Across the teaboard draws a long wet mark.

Arise! take snuffers by the handle,

There’s a large cauliflower in each candle.

A winding-sheet, ah me! I must away

To No. 7, just beyond the circus gay.

‘Alas, my friend! your coat sits very well;

Where may your tailor live?”I may not tell.

O pardon me — I’m absent now and then.

Where might my tailor live?I say again

I cannot tell, let me no more be teaz’d —

He lives in Wapping, might live where he pleas’d.’

 

***

John Keats

More poems by John Keats