#keats200

[queen-mabs-revenge]

                 49

   Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,    The grave, the city, and the wilderness;    And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,    And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress    The bones of Desolation's nakedness    Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead    Thy footsteps to a slope of green access    Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;

                 50      And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time    Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;    And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,    Pavilioning the dust of him who planned    This refuge for his memory, doth stand    Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,    A field is spread, on which a newer band    Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.

                 51      Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet    To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned    Its charge to each; and if the seal is set,    Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,    Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find    Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,    Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind    Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. What Adonais is, why fear we to become?

 -- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats (1821)

Art: John Buckland Wright

[mrs-darcy]

My favorite poet, John Keats, passed away two hundred years ago today, on 23 February 1821.

❤️

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits."

from "Endymion"

[gphydeauthor]

[queen-mabs-revenge]

‘Tell me.’

‘What?’ Johnny’s skin was very pale in the gloom. His short curls looked black.

‘What it was like to die. What it was like to be reborn.’

Johnny told me, his voice very soft, almost melodic, lapsing sometimes into an English too archaic to be understood but far more beautiful to the ear than the hybrid tongue we speak today. He told me what it was like to be a poet obsessed with perfection, far harsher toward his own efforts than even the most vicious critic.

And the critics were vicious. His work was dismissed, ridiculed, described as derivative and silly. Too poor to marry the woman he loved, loaning money to his brother in America and thus losing the last chance of financial security . . . and then the brief glory of growing into the full maturation of his poetic powers just as he fell prey to the ‘consumption’ which had claimed his mother and his brother Tom. Then sent off to exile in Italy, reputedly ‘for his health’ while knowing all the while it meant a lonely, painful death at the age of twenty-six.

He talked of the agony of seeing Fanny’s handwriting on the letters he found too painful to open; he talked of the loyalty of the young artist Joseph Severn, who had been chosen as a traveling companion for Keats by ‘friends’ who had abandoned the poet at the end, of how Severn had nursed the dying man and stayed with him during the final days. He told of the hemorrhages in the night, of Dr Clark bleeding him and prescribing ‘exercise and good air’, and of the ultimate religious and personal despair which had led Keats to demand his own epitaph be carved in stone as: ‘Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.’

Only the dimmest light from below outlined the tall windows. Johnny’s voice seemed to float in the night-scented air."

— Dan Simmons, Hyperion

[queen-mabs-revenge]

i am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,

the soul of adonais, like a star,

beacons from the abode where the eternal are.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

"At times during his last days he made me go to see the place where he was to be buried, and he expressed pleasure at any description of the locality of the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius, about the grass and the many flowers, particularly the innumerable violets, also about a flock of goats and sheep and a young shepherd–all these intensely interested him. Violets were his favourite flowers, and he joyed to hear how they overspread the graves. He assured me ‘that he already seemed to feel the flowers growing over him.’"

—Joseph Seven to William Haslam, February 22 1821

[queen-mabs-revenge]

After dark vapours have oppressed our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle South, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. The anxious month, relieving from its pains, Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May; The eyelids with the passing coolness play, Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains. The calmest thoughts come round us, as of leaves Budding—fruit ripening in stillness—autumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves— Sweet Sappho’s cheek—a smiling infant’s breath— The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs— A woodland rivulet—a Poet’s death.

[penandswordbooks]

'Grogan unravels the poet’s writings in such a sumptuous, adoring fashion – her passion is evident, her love for language infectious. The book, ultimately, brings so much of the past, and of Keats’ own personal world, intensely alive. It is a wonderful exploration of human and natural history, as well as of a singular, indelible spirit.' ~ Bright Star Book Blog ✨ On this day: in 1821, John Keats – one of Britain’s best-known and most-loved poets – died in Rome, aged only 25. 23 February 2021 marks the bicentenary of Keats's death. ✨ John Keats – Poetry, Life and Landscapes offers an accessible way to see Keats through the lens of the places he visited and aims to spark a lasting interest in the real Keats – the poet and the man. Following a lifetime of study, @suzie_grogan takes the reader on a journey through Keats’s life and landscapes, introducing us to his best and most influential work. 📚🤩 ✨ Highly recommended to those new to Keats as well as for those already familiar with the poet and his work. • #Keats200 #JohnKeats #Poetry #PoetsOfInstagram #OnThisDay #OTD #OTDIH #Bookstagram #BeautifulBooks #BookReviews #BookReviewersOfInstagram #Travelgram #VisitEngland #KeatsHouse #Hampstead #GuysHospital #Southwark #HistMed #Oxford #IsleOfWight #Teignmouth #LakeDistrict #VisitScotland #Chichester #Bedhampton #Winchester #Rome #WalkingTour #PenAndSword #PenAndSwordBooks https://www.instagram.com/p/CLomxasgfVi/?igshid=1461911td4bql

[penandswordbooks]

'We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the Author.' (John Keats to J.H. Reynolds, Teignmouth May 1818) 📖 John Keats: Poetry, Life and Landscapes by @suzie_grogan is now available. Save 20% off the RRP when you order via the P&S site (link in bio). Keats died on 23 February 1821; this wonderful new book has been published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his death. If you aren’t sold on this book by the beautiful cover alone (artwork by the talented @amanda_white_design), take a look at some of the glowing reviews it has received so far via the reviews tab on our website! 🤩📚 • #Keats #JohnKeats #Keats200 #NewBook #Bookstagram #BookReviews #19thCentury #ReviewersOfInstagram #Poetry #RomanticPoets #1800s #Rome #Hampstead #Cumbria #RecommendedReading #Quotes #Quotestagram #History #Biography #ArmchairTravel #PenAndSword #PenAndSwordBooks https://www.instagram.com/p/CK1JIFFgCXg/?igshid=1ssbajcf7udzi