Michael Villiers, Idealist :: :: University of Virginia Library

Margaret, the lady he cherished, our poet who sang
Goldenmouthed, so that we hearkened entranced to the sound;
Margaret, who saw him go hence, while with clash and with clang
Triumph rang high for the one we anointed and crowned;

Margaret, his jewel of jewels, his lady and love,
She who was heart of his heart, who was soul of his soul;
She with the delicate hands and the eyes of a dove;
She whom the world should have guarded from trouble and dole;

Reft of her love, and uncared for by kindred or friend,
Toiled twenty years ere the time of her rest might arrive;
Flinching not, steadily fought for her life to the end;
Strove through her weakness and pain as the resolute strive.

Woman and lady, untrained for the strife, unprepared,
What could she do to keep body and spirit untwinned?
Brave was the woman, and fared as a coward had fared;
Good was the woman, and suffered as if she had sinned.

So after twenty years gone, she was left to the drear
Facing of famine and cold, meagre-limbed, white of face;
Under the Three Golden Balls all her poor little gear;—
Then, on a morning in winter, one came to the place;

Came to her mean little dwelling, and offered her gold,
Gold in abundance instead of her loveletters signed with his name;
Loveletters yellowed a little and twenty years old;
Autograph notes of a poet ensphered in his fame.

One of the letters of Keats to his lady had brought
Guineas, he told her, a score, yestermonth at a sale;
Nought to the sum he would give did she grant what he sought;
Would she give up her possession, so might he prevail.

Scarcely a word did she say, but he knew it was vain;
Past through the door as he came, and half murmured, ‘Forgive!’
Went from her presence with something that bordered on pain;
Thought of the woman, and said, ‘Will she die? can she live?’

A face where there glowed such a soul as a dreamer may see
Fair in the land where shut eyelids are gates of desire,
Calm in its wrath, for the queen of her passion was she,
Haunted by day at his desk, and by night at his fire.

So when a se'nnight was over he could not refrain;
Went to the room that was fair from some radiancy shed
From a spirit close clasped to the bosom of love we call pain;—
Entered, and knelt on the floor by the side of the dead.

‘Among the autograph letters was a love=letter from Keats to Fanny Browne. . . . This was sold for 21l.’ Report of a sale in one of the literary papers, 1889.