What John Keats Can Teach Us About Slowing Down

Learning From Insects And The Cosmos | By Kelly McGilvery

It’s no secret that John Keats is one of the favorite poets here at Good Store. The genius who created some of the best works of English verse crammed a lot of living and writing into his short life, which ended at 25 due to tuberculosis. Here are a few of the lessons I took from reading some of his greatest hits. 

The Natural World Gives Us Awe (and So Do People)

One of Keats’ best-loved poems, Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art, offers a couple of key lessons. First, the comparison of the bright star and its relationship to Earth to a holy man ministering to his flock shows us that we can note the grandeur of nature and shed light on our inner world. 

The following lines consider oneself with similar dedication as the bright star to its devotion.

… still stedfast, still unchangeable

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath

And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

Here we can draw another lesson from Bright star: take quiet moments to appreciate a loved one.

You Can Find the World In Some Bugs

Some of Keats’ poetry reminds me of the simplicity and meditations on beauty of classic Japanese haiku masters like Basho and Issa. His dedication to discernment in the natural world and perception of the details of what he sees brings to life a cosmos of activity in our surroundings.

From On the Grasshopper and the Cricket:

… a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the Grasshopper’s – he takes the lead In summer luxury 

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever

Noting the machinations of an insect across seasons is a level of attention to the natural world that not everyone can sustain, or would aspire to. And yet, that can demonstrate to us how like elements in nature we are - and that noticing brings a whole other world of activity to our contemplations.

Look To Nature For Solace Or Direction

The vastness of nature can provide us with consolation and guidance if we take the time to perceive it as such. The small and the large of wilderness, the individual and its surroundings. The natural world can help us heal and learn.

From On the Sea:

Often ‘tis in such gentle temper found

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from whence it sometimes fell,

When last the winds of heaven were unbound.

O ye who have your eyeballs vext and tir’d,

Feast them upon the wideness of the sea

When we slow down to take in the grandeur of nature, we are often rewarded with relief from our troubles, or ideas about how to move forward through challenges.

Rest Is *Gasp* Restorative

A final, perhaps obvious, but nevertheless essential lesson from Keats comes to us from his beautiful Sonnet to Sleep: “O soothest Sleep! if it so please thee, close / In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes” and “Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards / Its strength for darkness, burrowing like the mole.” Making time for sleep is necessary and wise. Leisure allows us a system reset for our selves - let us take up the bargain.

For more aid in your contemplation and leisure, enjoy Keats and Co coffees and teas.