"No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
Awake forever in sweet unrest..."
Keats uses a lot of comparative figurative language in this poem. The speaker talks about the star as if it has human qualities because he wants to be like it: always constant and undying, watching the world move "like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite." At first the speaker admires the star's consistency because it gets to observe the beauty of the world. However, in line nine, he switches focus and says "Now--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast..." The speaker still desires to be constant like the star, but for a different reason now. He attributes the stars' form of observation to a more human-like desire. He wants to be always with his love. He wants to hear her breathe constantly and forever in the same way that a star observes the sort of breathing and movement of the world constantly and forever. He wants to be the "sleepless Eremite" that lies against his love's chest just to hear her breathe instead of hanging aloft in the sky. His love is more beautiful to him than the nature that the star watches over.
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