Things cannot to the will be settled, but they tease us out of thought

In the letter to Reynolds,wrote on 25 March 1818, John Keats wrote in verse. It was the Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds. Here I quoted the line 67 to 85:

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul's daytime
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle, - but my flag is not unfurl'd
On the Admiral-staff, - and so philosophise
I dare not yet! Oh, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it that imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,
Lost in a sort of purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn, -
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the nightingale.

Life is not easy for everyone. It is exceptional hard for those who do not have mean to support the passion for their ideal. This was happened both to John Keats and Reynolds. John Keats gave up his study in Medicine and a career as a surgeon for poetry without mean to support his life. In the oppositive direction, Reynolds obeyed his future wife and gave up poetry to study Law. They both were troubled by the world. Those were things that cannot be settled to the will and teased them out of thought.

Even though John Keats always stressed: 'O for a life of Sensation rather than of Thoughts!' However, in his letters and poetry, we often can find his philosophising on life. That makes his poetry and letters appeal to me. It gives me feeling at the same time in sympathy with thoughts.

I like the above lines. It described our conflicting desires in life so precise and our frustration such miserable that makes you enjoy his poetry in heart and in mind.