The World's Oldest Authority on Keats

He is still active, and in the spring

he sits out in the sun, a shawl

humped over his shoulders

like the turf

of a quiet mound,

bringing to mind the fact

that the consumptive, brilliant boy

could feel, before he died,

the young grass

growing on his grave,

through which this aged head

has partially ascended, critical in glasses,

methodical as an enzyme,

but disembodied

of his ardour,

except maybe a small memory shared

by all old men of a time

when the senses flashed like gunpowder

and he was younger even than grass,

and passionate. |

Structure

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