For Vera Cacciatore
I
The water-poet lay down with flowers above
And the half-sunken boat below his head.
Bitter with young and unrespondent love
Poetry lay foundering on the Italian bed.
Vision and terror held him while he bled
Himself of character and identity.
Upon the coffered ceiling his soul fed
Festoons of roses to his fevered eye.
Friends from afar watch over every breath,
Friends in the room receive his last asides,
Sleep and poetry, charactr’y and death
Stand by the pillow as he outward rides.
Poets of all times and ages come and go
Here where Keats died. The boat sinks on below.
II
The house looks rich; this was no starving poet,
And nowadays a millionaire can’t buy it.
The famed boat-fountain lying just below it
Is a bad joke. At least the plash is quiet.
The Spanish Steps sweep upward like a skirt
To the effeminate church that squats on high.
What did he think, lying in mortal hurt,
Of all that grunting in the lovers’ sty?
Now he’s a library and a sacred name,
Voices take off their shoes when here they tread,
And quite a few remember the belle dame
Who sidewise leant beside his glowing head
When to his healthy friend he turned and said,
Severn, please don’t be frightened, and was dead.
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