John Keats

My dearest Fanny,

I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

Write me the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form. The very first week I knew you I wrote myself your vassal; but burnt the letter as the very next time I saw you I thought you manifested some dislike to me.

You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving—I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it?

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute. I hate the world: it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and would I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it.

From no others would I now take a kiss; I would not even press the hand of a lovely woman except as you might press that of a friend. I am miserable when I am not with you, yet I would rather be with you for five minutes than with any body else for my whole life.