The Letters and Poems of John Keats

"THIS GRAVE CONTAINS ALL THAT WAS MORTAL OF A YOUNG ENGLISH POET, WHO, ON HIS DEATHBED, IN THE BITTERNESS OF HIS HEART AT THE MALICIOUS POWER OF HIS ENEMIES, DESIRED THE WORDS TO BE ENGRAVED ON HIS TOMB

"Here lies one whose name was writ in water.'"

In Shelley's" Adonais," written to the memory of Keats, the place of Keats's burial is thus consecrated:

"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,

"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.

"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?"

Only a few years later the heart of Shelley himself was buried a little above the grave of Keats in the newer burying-ground. The faithful Severn lived to a great age, and died in Rome only two or three years ago. He was sought out by all the lovers of Keats who visited Rome, and as the letter written to my mother in 1863 and printed in one of these volumes shows, he kept his love for his friend ever fresh.

Keats's sister Fanny married Señor Llanos, a Spanish gentleman of liberal politics, and the author of "Don Esteban," "Sandoval, the Freemason," and other illustrations of the modern history of the Peninsula. During the existence of the Spanish Republic he represented Spain at the Court of Rome. Madame Llanos is still living in Madrid, and I have a letter, written only a month ago, and sent to me together with her portrait. Her son, Juan Llanos y Keats, is an artist of high repute in Spain.

Among the manuscripts in my possession, I have found the following sonnet, written in 1816. So far as I know, it has not before been printed :

"There was a season when the fabled name
Of high Parnassus and Apollo's lyre
Seemed terms of excellence to my desire;
Therefore a youthful bard I may not blame.
But when the page of everlasting Truth
Has on the attentive mind its force imprest,

Then vanish all the affections dear in youth,
And love immortal fills the grateful breast.
The wonders of all ruling Providence,
The joys that from celestial mercy flow
Essential beauty, perfect excellence,
Ennoble and refine the native glow

The poet feels; and thence his best resource
To paint his feelings with sublimest force."

The portraits of John, George, and Tom Keats, contained in these volumes, were made from the portraits Severn painted for George Keats when he came to America. Severn accompanied the brothers as far as Liverpool, to see George off and to put some finishing touches on the portrait of John. The silhouette of Fanny Brawne was the most satisfactory of all the likenesses preserved by her family, though Severn is quoted as having said that the draped figure in Titian's noble picture of Sacred and Profane Love, in the Borghese Palace in Rome, resembled her so greatly that he paid frequent visits to it, and on this account made a copy of it. The sketch of Keats's head is from Severn's pencildrawing, which has on it these words:

"28th Jany. 3 o'clock m'g. Drawn to keep me awake— a deadly sweat was on him all this night."

The most satisfactory of all the likenesses of Keats I have ever seen is Haydon's masque of his face, taken in 1818. Through the kind courtesy of Mr. Gilder, the accomplished editor of "The Century Magazine," the publishers of these books are enabled to include in one of the volumes an etching of this masque. The other sketch from life of Keats's head

I've left my

little Queen