Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

Keats' epitaph for himself (1821)

 

Melancholy's lack of zest

Was written all over his palimpsest:

To die at twenty-five, to some,

Will hardly seem to have been alive.

But Johnny Keats lived and loved

Poetry, music, kisses, tears

Eschewing self-pitying-fears-of-suicide

He tried his best to stay alive

With medicine, and Fanny's tears.

..........

No crossing of the river Lethe, as yet,

Undefeated by TB, at least temporarily,

No seeking out of empty-headed

Oblivion either. He preferred to breathe,

To feel, to see, to hear, to think, to write

Apothecary-surgeon Keats wanted Fanny as his wife..

..........

 

He did not measure out his life in years

But rose to the attainment of that rarest

Of rare orchids, love. For what will survive of us

is love.

...... 

Towards the end, in Rome, he devotes his  time to love,  friends

To all the passingness of life. Johnny

Keats, the poet-physician, balanced

His surface understanding of anatomy

With the hidden mysteries of poetry 

His alchemical intuitions since ,

Borne out by quantum physics.

.........

Time is such a  slippery beast,

For footloose Cavaliers,

And life is so much more

Than just the passing of the years.