I Had a Dove

I Had a Dove
I HAD a dove and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving:
O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied,
With a silken thread of my own hand’s weaving;
Sweet little red feet! why should you die –
Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why?
You liv’d alone in the forest-tree,
Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me?
I kiss’d you oft and gave you white peas;
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

Keats’ poem I Had a Dove represents Keats’ own selfish love and his lack of understanding of the complex elements that combine to create the healthy love he craves. The dove Keats’ refers to, is symbolic of the goodness and peace Keats’ has found in his object of affection, which in capturing for his own, Keats unwittingly destroys in his selfish care ‘Its feet were tied, with a silken thread of my own hands weaving’. The poem represents Keats’ own struggle with love in an attempt to understand it so that he might succeed in loving unselfishly and completely, a fate which he often describes as eluding him in many of his poems. Keats recognizes the fact that he is to blame for the death of his beloved dove, but throughout the poem struggles to comprehend why his love was not enough for the bird to survive ‘I kissed you oft and gave you white peas, why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?’