Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/35

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He did not die nigh to the Spanish stairsIn drowsing Rome, even if his dust is hidUnder her violets, his last despairsAt rest beside the Cestian pyramid.That valiant spirit wherein all beauty quiveredOutlives forever the failing brain and heartConsumed by love when lightning many-riveredDescended on the altar of his art.
And summer's wind that runs the rippling barley(Watched by his hazel eyes with such delight),Bees on the foxglove bloom in buzzing parley,The flickering shadow of a swallow's flight,Hold him more closely now than all his gloriesOf marbled myth, all that our world esteemsOf jewelled language in those enchanted storiesHe wove on purple tapestry of dreams.
Now he exults in all the secret rapturesOf earth, all color and fragrance near or far,—Flows through the flaming sunset, storms and capturesThe throbbing, luminous heart of every star.The flowers, the clouds, the birds are his in keeping.They brighten beneath that swift and viewless wing.His is all summer's shining, all autumn's weeping,All the wild virginal ardor of the spring.
The Literary ReviewWilliam Rose BenétN. Y. Evening Post

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    This poem in commemoration of the Centenary of John Keats was read before the Authors' Club of New York on Thursday, February 24.

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