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by John Keats (1795 - 1821)

In a drear‑nighted December
Language: English 
In a 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 a 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’t were so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

Text Authorship:

  • by John Keats (1795 - 1821) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960), "In a drear-nighted December", first performed 2013 [mezzo-soprano, baritone, and piano], from The Drift of Things; Winter Songs, no. 5, Self-published, Angelfire Press ; in Part II, "For Love is a Thing of Changes" [ sung text verified 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2017-11-12
Line count: 24
Word count: 114

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