Wistful Wonderings

The poem "Bright Star" by John Keats has a decidedly wistful tone to it. The speaker is wistful because he yearns to be like the star: see everything, be "steadfast," and be "unchanging." Most of all, though, he wishes to be able to watch/be with his love for all time.  The speaker is longing to be like the star, which we see in the first line when he uses an apostrophe. He speaks of each wonderful thing that the star has and how jealous he is of it; he then informs us he would give up all of these to be with his lover. He does mention briefly how he would not like to feel alone like a star. But, this too proves wistfulness because he would not be able to handle life without his love. The entire poem is written in pensively, using words such "gazing" and "unchangeable." The term wistful clicked with me because the poem focuses on one-sided love, which is full of yearning when expressed.  It also helped that the title of my blog came from a song ("Seeing Stars" by Jack Ingram) that was written in the same deep, yearning thought process. It allowed me to better identify the tone.