Sovereign Keats
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To bear all naked truths,
And to envisage circumstance, all calm:
That is the top of sovereignty.
Hyperion II 203
To accept all
With plain heroic magnitude of mind
~ Milton, Samson Agonistes
“Keats coughed and a small spot of blood appeared on the sheet. Brown heard him say, “That is blood from my mouth, bring me the candle Brown, let me see this blood.” And then, looking up at Brown, he said, “I know the colour of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that colour. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die.” And, indeed, how accurate he was in diagnosis and prognosis, for he died in Rome just over a year later.”
“Right in the middle of him he accepted something from destiny which gave him the quality of eternity.” ~ D. H. Lawrence, St.Mawr
“This ‘ease of mind’ is what Spinoza calls man’s “eternity” as distinct from his immortality in time, which Spinoza denies” ~ Spinoza, Ethics,V, 34, note
I do not know if Keats conceived himself
As stoic. What I know is when he saw
Bright blood coughed up, he placed it on a shelf
Inside his soul to contemplate it, raw
And utter. He had seen it many nights
Before while nursing his beloved Tom.
Keats knew then he must rise to stoic heights
And find, somehow, a way to die in calm.
Unlike the other poets of his age,
He knew with certainty approaching death.
He knew that he was trapped within its cage
And death was counting crudely every breath.
..That iridescence on his bed sheet told
…. Him, “Face death harshly and be bold.
