Explore "Keats (in Praise of Poets)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 crimson 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 that music kissed / To breathe thy song, and, ere thy heart grew / cold, / Become the Poet of Immortal Youth.