 | Ballads and other verses |  |
68
ON RECEIVING A LOCK OF KEATS'S HAIR.
Dear relic of a bright, immortal name,
Forever young and canopied by fame,—
I touch thy beauty with a tremulous thrill.
Forever young and canopied by fame,—
I touch thy beauty with a tremulous thrill.
Oft in the columned city, when night's still
And starry-vestured hours seem prone to weep
Where Keats is laid in moon-enfolded sleep,
Among the daisies shrining his loved bones
Mid Death's mosaic,—green turf and white stones,—
I 've heard the song-birds with their music pass
Above their nested brother in the grass,
And thought with joy, and tear-suffusèd eyes,—
No serpent now lurks in his Paradise,
No venomed tongue can reach him with its hate,—
Wrapped in eternal quiet with the great!
And starry-vestured hours seem prone to weep
Where Keats is laid in moon-enfolded sleep,
Among the daisies shrining his loved bones
Mid Death's mosaic,—green turf and white stones,—
I 've heard the song-birds with their music pass
Above their nested brother in the grass,
And thought with joy, and tear-suffusèd eyes,—
No serpent now lurks in his Paradise,
No venomed tongue can reach him with its hate,—
Wrapped in eternal quiet with the great!
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