Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
The above poem by John Keats (1795-1821) is published in 1818. If we do not move our ships into the sea of love, we would stay at home forever. He reveals how the imagination (Fancy) may impact humans. This is a cause of his magnificent influence on his contemporary writers. Keats comes from the Romantic period where there are expressions of beauty in nature. “Like to bubbles when rain peltheth” demonstrates the rain as a gun firing bubbles in nature which gives unparalleled beauty to elements of nature.
He employs the AABB rhyme scheme in this piece. “Open wide the mind’s cage-door,” says about the philosophy he maintains. Opening a door from our mental cage frees the bird inside to join the beloved. In Persian poetry, Ibn Sina (980-1037) used the same metaphor (“morgh” as the bird, and “heart” as the body).