Read "The Grace of Keats" by Maria Lowell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
But one rude stone for him whose song
Revived the Grecian's plastic ease, / Till men and maidens danced along
In youth perpetual on his frieze!
Where lies that mould of senses fine
Men knew as Keats awhile ago, / We cannot trace a single sign
Of all that made his joy below.
There are no trees to talk of him
Who knew their hushes and their swells, / Where myriad leaves in forest dim
Build up their cloudy citadels.
No mystic-signaled passion-flowers
Spread their flat discs, while buds more fair
Swing like great bells, in frail green towers, / To toll away the summer air.
O Mother Earth! thy sides he bound
With far-off Venus' warmer zone, / With statelier sons thy landscape crowned, / Whose chiming voices matched thine own!
O Mother Earth, what hast thou brought
This tender frame that loved thee well?
Harsh grass and weeds alone are wrought
On his low grave's uneven swell.
Rome, March 20, 1851.