Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Rome, the Protestant Burial-Ground

The Grave of Keats

By Maria Lowell (1821–1853)

BUT one rude stone for him whose song

Revived the Grecian’s plastic ease,

Till men and maidens danced along

In youth perpetual on his frieze!

Where lies that mould of senses fine

Men knew as Keats awhile ago,

We cannot trace a single sign

Of all that made his joy below.

There are no trees to talk of him

Who knew their hushes and their swells,

Where myriad leaves in forest dim

Build up their cloudy citadels.

No mystic-signalled passion-flowers

Spread their flat discs, while buds more fair

Swing like great bells, in frail green towers,

To toll away the summer air.

O Mother Earth! thy sides he bound

With far-off Venus’ warmer zone,

With statelier sons thy landscape crowned,

Whose chiming voices matched thine own!

O Mother Earth, what hast thou brought

This tender frame that loved thee well?

Harsh grass and weeds alone are wrought

On his low grave’s uneven swell.