Quote of the Day by John Keats, "I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion..."

John Keats is one of the most loved romantic poets. His tragic life and love story is often discussed in literary environs and his creativity in turning pain into magical poetry is looked upon with a lot of respect. Keats had a very short life, but his achievements as a poet were profound.

John Keats lived a short, intense life full of pain. He lost his parents when he was young, fought tuberculosis that killed his mother and brother and himsef was afflicted by it. He was born in London in 1795 to a mother who worked as a stable-hand and a father who worked as a stable-keeper. He trained to be an apothecary-surgeon, but he gave it up to write poetry. Keats was haunted by pain throughout his life, but it also made him see things more clearly, turning short-lived beauty into art that would last forever. He died at the young age of 25, but not before he gave the world some of the most beautiful works of poetry, including his famous Odes, in which he fights joy against fading away, or "La Belle Dame sans Merci," a scary fairy tale about love's deadly pull. For him, love wasn't sweet; it was a strong belief worth dying for, like the lines above that he wrote to Fanny Brawne, his great love.

Keats's Odes, like "To a Nightingale," "On a Grecian Urn," "To Autumn," and "Ode on Melancholy," show how beauty can be both stunning and painful because it slips away. Pain gave birth to this genius: the nightingale's song makes fun of human suffering, the urn's frozen lovers tease eternal perfection we can't touch, autumn ripens and then rots, and sadness clings sweetest in joy's shadow. In "La Belle Dame sans Merci," a knight is killed by a spell cast by a mysterious woman. Her "wild wild eyes" and "lily on thy brow" lead him to a barren moor, where he is sucked dry of roots and all. It's love that kills, like Keats' own fevered love for Fanny as he coughs up blood. These aren't abstract; they're his gut-punch against a body that has let him down, making every line feel like real pain.

“I have been astonished that men could die martyrs
for their religion--
I have shuddered at it,
I shudder no more.
I could be martyred for my religion.
Love is my religion
and I could die for that.
I could die for you.
My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.”

The above are among the most iconic lines of John Keats. He was a true romantic and he did not understand why there would be any other reason than love that a man would give his life for. For him, love is the only true religion. He feels that a man is wasting his life if he is giving it up for fanaticism or religious faith. Love should be the only religion and emotion to rule the earth and the only reason to sacrifice one's life. These are one of the most beautiful lines of Keats and they have a deep and lasting impact. The poet, through these lines, gives a message that in this world there is no greater cause than love and that should be the only motivation for anything and everything. It is beyond and above all emotions, and love should be ruling the world and not any other faith.