Explore "Sonnet: how Many Bards" by John Keats on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How many bards gild the lapses of time!
A few of them have ever been the food / Of my delighted fancy, -- I could brood / Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme, / These will in throngs before my mind intrude:
But no confusion, no disturbance rude / Do they occasion; 'tis a pleasing chime.
So the unnumber'd sounds that evening store; / The songs of birds -- the whisp'ring of the leaves --
The voice of waters -- the great bell that heaves / With solemn sound, -- and thousand others more, / That distance of recognizance bereaves, / Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.