This Living Hand

John Keats

 

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--
I hold it towards you.

 

Poems by This Author

Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever] by John Keats
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
Lamia [Left to herself] by John Keats
Left to herself, the serpent now began
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains by John Keats
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
Bright Star by John Keats
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art
I cry your mercy—pity—love!—ay, love by John Keats
I cry your mercy—pity—love!—ay, love
In drear nighted December by John Keats
In drear nighted December
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles by John Keats
My spirit is too weak—mortality
On the Grasshopper and the Cricket by John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead:
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone by John Keats
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone
The Eve of St. Agnes, XXIII, [Out went the taper as she hurried in] by John Keats
Out went the taper as she hurried in
The Human Seasons by John Keats
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
To a Friend who sent me some Roses by John Keats
As late I rambled in the happy fields
To Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
To Fanny by John Keats
Physician Nature! let my spirit blood
To Haydon with a Sonnet Written on Seeing the Elgin Marbles by John Keats
Haydon! Forgive me, that I cannot speak
When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be by John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be


Further Reading

Related Poems
This Living Hand [excerpt]
by Dean Young
Poems about Hands
A Bird in Hand
by Amber Flora Thomas
A Hand
by Jane Hirshfield
After the Grand Perhaps
by Lucie Brock-Broido
Amaze
by Adelaide Crapsey
Consider the Hands that Write This Letter
by Aracelis Girmay
Hands
by Siv Cedering
Out-of-the-Body Travel
by Stanley Plumly
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings
Spring is like a perhaps hand
by E. E. Cummings
The Balloon of the Mind
by W. B. Yeats
The Book of the Dead Man (Your Hands)
by Marvin Bell
The Hand
by Mary Ruefle
To You
by Walt Whitman