Travelled for his health to the half-buried

city of ruins, halfway between

the living and the dead.

Fragments of columns,

toppled arches, broken aqueducts.

Took rooms in a second-floor apartment

at the Piazza di Spagna,

close by the sound of Bernini’s fountain.

Locks of hair exchanged

with Fanny Brawne

before he left for Italy.

Save it for me, sweet love!

 

Only the fireplace and the ceiling remain.

All else was burned upon his death

by orders of the Vatican.

The soul wells up. And yet:

the latest entry in the visitors’ book

a direct descendant of cheery,

carefree Joseph Severn, who nursed

and fed and drew John Keats

before he died. The author

of ‘To Autumn’, a man some critics

scorned as ‘Cockney poet’,

coughed blood, and knew it was his fate.

 

“Here lies one whose name

was writ in water.”

Longed for the cold earth

and quiet grave. Severn, lift me up

For I am dying. I shall die easy.

Don’t be frightened.

Thank God it has come. 

Through the window,

outside in the sunshine

the tourists whoop and cheer

as yet another couple hug and vow

upon the Spanish Steps.