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Poetry Of John Keats: 'Ode On Melancholy,' Introduction

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From: Monarch Notes
Date: 19630101
Author:Keats, John

Keats, John
Monarch Notes
01-01-1963
"Ode On Melancholy," Introduction:

The "Ode on Melancholy" was originally to have begun with the following
stanza, later canceled by the poet:

Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones,
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast,
Stitch creeds together for a sail, with groans
To fill it out, blood-stained and aghast;
Although your rudder be a dragon's tail
Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony,
Your cordage large uprootings from the skull
Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail
To find the Melancholy - whether she
Dreameth in any isle of Lethe dull.

There ...

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