I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill by John Keats

The Troubadour Podcast

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A reading of the poem by Keats.
I STOOD tip-toe upon a little hill, |
The air was cooling, and so very still, |
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride |
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, |
Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, | 5
Had not yet lost those starry diadems |
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. |
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn, |
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept |
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept | 10
A little noiseless noise among the leaves, |
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves: |
For not the faintest motion could be seen |
Of all the shades that slanted o’er the green. |
There was wide wand’ring for the greediest eye, | 15
To peer about upon variety; |
Far round the horizon’s crystal air to skim, |
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim; |
To picture out the quaint, and curious bending |
Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending; | 20
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves, |
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves. |
I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free |
As though the fanning wings of Mercury |
Had played upon my heels: I was light-hearted, | 25
And many pleasures to my vision started; |
So I straightway began to pluck a posey |
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy. |
A bush of May flowers with the bees about them; |
Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them; | 30
And let a lush laburnum oversweep them, |
And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them |
Moist, cool and green; and shade the violets, |
That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. |
A filbert hedge with wildbriar overtwined, | 35
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind |
Upon their summer thrones; there too should be |
The frequent chequer of a youngling tree, |
That with a score of light green breth[r]en shoots |
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots: | 40
Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters |
Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters |
The spreading blue bells: it may haply mourn |
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn |
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly | 45
By infant hands, left on the path to die. |
Open afresh your round of starry folds, |
Ye ardent marigolds! |
Dry up the moisture from your golden lids, |
For great Apollo bids | 50
That in these days your praises should be sung |
On many harps, which he has lately strung; |
And when again your dewiness he kisses, |
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses: |
So haply when I rove in some far vale, | 55
His mighty voice may come upon the gale. |
Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight: |
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, |
And taper fingers catching at all things, |
To bind them all about with tiny rings. | 60
Linger awhile upon some bending planks |
That lean against a streamlet’s rushy banks, |
And watch intently Nature’s gentle doings: |
They will be found softer than ring-dove’s cooings. |
How silent comes the water round that bend; | 65
Not the minutest whisper does it send |
To the o’erhanging sallows: blades of grass |
Slowly across the chequer’d shadows pass. |
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach |&n