John Keats's most famous lines
The top 3 according to 134 votes from people: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter · 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. · Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness!. (Updated Jul 21, 2022.)
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty', 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', 'half in love with easeful Death': the lines of John Keats's 1819 odes and ballads that everyone quotes, checked against the 1884 Poetical Works.
Top 12
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1
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter
'Ode on a Grecian Urn' (1819).
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2
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
'Ode on a Grecian Urn' (1819), closing lines.
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3
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness!
'Ode on a Grecian Urn' (1819), first line.
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4
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
'Ode to a Nightingale' (1819).
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5
Darkling I listen; and for many a time / I have been half in love with easeful Death
'Ode to a Nightingale' (1819).
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6
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, / Alone and palely loitering?
'La Belle Dame sans Merci' (1819).
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7
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
'To Autumn' (1819), first lines.
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8
Already with thee! tender is the night
'Ode to a Nightingale' (1819); F. Scott Fitzgerald took his novel's title from it.
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9
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? / Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
'Ode to a Nightingale' (1819), closing lines.
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10
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
'Ode to a Nightingale' (1819).
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11
'La Belle Dame sans Merci / Hath thee in thrall!'
'La Belle Dame sans Merci' (1819).
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12
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
'Ode to a Nightingale' (1819).
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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