Read "Keats" by Henry van Dyke online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The melancholy gift Aurora gained / From Jove, that her sad lover should not see / The face of death, no goddess asked for thee, / My Keats! But when the scarlet blood-drop stained / Thy pillow, thou didst read the fate ordained --
Brief life, wild love, a flight of poesy!
And then -- a shadow fell on Italy: / Thy star went down before its brightness waned.
Yet thou hast won the gift Tithonus missed: / Never to feel the pain of growing old, / Nor lose the blissful sight of beauty's truth, / But with the ardent lips Urania kissed / To breathe thy song, and, ere thy heart grew cold, / Become the Poet of Immortal Youth.
August, 1906.