THE FRIEND OF JOHN KEATS.

New Zealand Tablet, 18 August 1921, Page 39

THE FRIEND OF JOHN KEATS.

You brought John Keats no joy, no rumor of fame, But peace and a quiet dying, and a hand

To hold in sleeping; from home and friends you came, From deeds unfinished and from dreams unplanned,

What matter if men forget the beauty thereof, Who let all memories fade, all garlands fall?

You are locked with the dead roses, lost with love, Fled with the May-time’s thrall; So richly free and far, beyond our sad recall.

Poet of poets died upon your breast,

Severn, what need have you of laurels there? Scorn requiems and roses and the rest;

Unlaureled sleep: we have none such to spare. At rich men’s doors the lackey poets wait

The hireling verscrs strut and shriek their due The Byrons of our day importunate;

Keats’ brow no laurel knew—

Those laurels that most fade in hands that most pursue.

While England doved her lord of little verse, — Her bright, sham, painted poet of the day,

Music that broke the heart of song was hers; She hushed it for the chatter of a jay. The air is thick with swallows, and who cares?

In the shrill streets June dies upon her rose. The crowd runs gaping to the huckster’s wares,

And all the poet knows

Of fame is that her hands his dying eyelids close.

—Murial Stuart, in the English Review.