I thought Keats’ “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” was a very interesting take on the sonnet. Sonnets archetypally express love toward something, usually another person, but complicate that love by having a “turn” somewhere within the poem where the tone usually shifts, or the author comes to some sort of epiphany. This poem clearly has themes of love, but I don’t think I’d call it a love poem. It too includes a turn: “No,—yet still steadfast, still changeable.” The poem turns from Keats admiring the star in the night sky to wishing for his “fair love’s ripening breast.” Though Keats admires the star for its steadfastness, he does not want to be isolated from the Earth and his lover the way the star is isolated from the Earth. It’s sort of a paradox: the things Keats envies of the star—its splendor in the night sky, its ability to watch over the beauty of the Earth—are the same reasons he doesn’t want to be like the star, because it would mean he’s away from his lover.
This presents a sort of sad conclusion to the poem. Keats, and there for his love, cannot be eternal and steady like the star is. He cannot lay with his lover forever the way the star can sit in the sky forever, because in order for that steadiness he would need to be separated from his lover. The poem seems to argue the nature of love is fragile: the last line, “And so live ever—or else swoon to death” suggests his embrace with his lover will eventually be ended by death or some other part of life. Thus, the star both represents what Keats wants from love, but also why love is so precious: because it cannot be eternal like the star.
