Shakespeare<\/a>‘s Poems which he had given Severn a few days before, and wrote out fair and neatly for him, on the blank page opposite the heading A Lover’s Complaint, the beautiful sonnet which every lover of English knows so well:–<\/p>\nBright star, would I were stedfast as thou art,
\nNot in lone splendour hung aloft the night
\nAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,
\nLike nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
\nThe moving waters at their priestlike task
\nOf pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
\nOr gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
\nOf snow upon the mountains and the moors–
\nNo–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
\nPillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
\nTo feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
\nAwake for ever in a sweet unrest,
\nStill, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
\nAnd so live ever–or else swoon to death.<\/p>\n
Severn in later life clearly cherished the impression that the sonnet had been actually composed for him on the day of the Dorsetshire landing. Lord Houghton in his Life and Literary Remains distinctly asserts as much, and it had seemed to us all a beautiful and consolatory circumstance, in the tragedy of Keats’s closing days, that his last inspiration in poetry should have come in a strain of such unfevered beauty and tenderness, and with images of such a refreshing and solemn purity. But in point of fact the sonnet was work of an earlier date, and the autograph given to Severn is on the face of it no draught but a fair copy. Its original form had been this–<\/p>\n
Bright star! would I were stedfast as thou art!
\nNot in lone splendour hung amid the night;
\nNot watching, with eternal lids apart,
\nLike Nature’s devout sleepless Eremite,
\nThe morning waters at their priestlike task
\nOf pure ablution round earth’s human shores;
\nOr, gazing on the new soft fallen mask
\nOf snow upon the mountains and the moors:–
\nNo;–yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
\nCheek-pillow’d on my Love’s white ripening breast,
\nTo touch, for ever, its warm sink and swell,
\nAwake, for ever, in a sweet unrest;To hear, to feel her tender-taken breath,
\nHalf passionless, and so swoon on to death.<\/p>\n
The sonnet is copied in this form by Charles Brown, under date 1819, in the collection of transcripts from Keats’s fugitive verses which from the spring of that year he regularly made as soon after they were written as he could lay hands on them. His dates I have found always trustworthy, and I have shown reason for holding the sonnet to have been written in the last week of February 1819, and the first days of Keats’s engagement to Fanny Brawne. All that Keats can actually have done during that evening of tranquillity off Lulworth was to return to it in thought and recopy it for Severn with changes which in the second line heightened the remoteness of the star; in the fourth made an inverted metrical stress normal by substituting ‘patient’ for ‘devout’; in the fifth changed the word ‘morning’ into ‘moving,'(87) in the tenth cancelled one of his defining and arresting compound participles in favour of a simpler phrase; and in the four concluding lines varied a little the mood and temperature of the longing expressed, calling for death not as the sequel to his desire’s longing’s fulfilment, but as the alternative for it. In Severn’s first mention of the subject, which is in a letter written from Rome a few weeks after Keats’s death, he shows himself aware that Brown might be in possession already of a version of the sonnet, which of course could only have been the case if it had been composed before Keats left Hampstead. ‘Do you know,’ he writes, ‘the sonnet beginning Bright Star etc., he wrote this down in the ship–it is one of his most beautiful things. I will send it, if you have it not.’<\/p>\n
The rest of the voyage, after getting clear of the English Channel, was quick but uncomfortable, the weather variable and often squally. Signs of improvement in Keats’s health alternated with alarming returns of haemorrhage, and the painful symptoms of his fellowtraveller Miss Cotterell preyed sometimes severely on his nerves and spirits. At other times his thoughts ran pleasantly on poems yet to be written, and especially on one he had planned on the story of Sabrina. ‘He mentioned to me many times in our voyage’, writes Severn within a few weeks of the poet’s death, ‘his desire to write this story and to connect it with some points in the English history and character. He would sometimes brood over it with immense enthusiasm, and recite the story from Milton Comus in a manner that I will remember to the end of my days.’ It is good to think of Keats being thus able to occupy and soothe his fevered spirit with the lovely cadences that tell how Nereus pitied the rescued nymph,<\/p>\n
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
\nIn nectar’d lavers strew’d with Asphodel,<\/p>\n
or with those that invoke her in the prayer,–<\/p>\n
Listen where thou art sitting
\nUnder the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
\nIn twisted braids of lilies knitting
\nThe loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,–<\/p>\n
it is good to think of this and to try and conceive what Keats while he was in health might have made of this English theme which haunted his imagination now and afterwards at Rome, when the power to shape and almost the power to live and breathe had left him.<\/p>\n
Severn took during the voyage an opportunity to make a new drawing of Keats as he lay propped and resting on his berth. Such a drawing would have been an invaluable addition to our memorials of the poet: it remained long in the possession first of one and then of another of Severn’s sons, but has of late years unluckily disappeared: stolen, thinks its latest owner, Mr Arthur Severn: let us hope that this mention may perhaps lead to its recognition and recovery. During some rough weather in the Bay of Biscay Keats began to read the shipwreck canto of Don Juan, but presently found its reckless and cynic brilliancy intolerable, and flung the volume from him in disgust. Perhaps something of his real feelings, but certainly nothing of his way of expressing them, is preserved in Severn’s account of the matter written five-and-twenty years later.–<\/p>\n
Keats threw down the book and exclaimed: ‘this gives me the most horrid idea of human nature, that a man like Byron should have exhausted all the pleasures of the world so completely that there was nothing left for him but to laugh and gloat over the most solemn and heart-rending scenes of human misery, this storm of his is one of the most diabolical attempts ever made upon our sympathies, and I have no doubt it will fascinate thousands into extreme obduracy of heart–the tendency of Byron’s poetry is based on a paltry originality, that of being new by making solemn things gay and gay things solemn.’<\/p>\n
In a calm off Cape St Vincent, Keats was delighted with the play of silken colours on the sea, and interested in watching the movement of a whale. The next day there came an alarm: a shot was fired over the bows of the ‘ Maria Crowther’ from one of two Portuguese men of war becalmed close by; but drifting within hail one of the Portuguese captains explained that there were supposed to be privateers in those waters and that he only wanted to learn whether the Englishman had sighted any such.<\/p>\n
On October 21, thirty-four days out from London, the ‘ Maria Crowther’ reached Naples harbour and was promptly put in quarantine. In that predicament her passengers sweltered and fumed for ten full days, their number having been increased by the addition of a lieutenant and six seamen, who were despatched from an English man-of-war in the harbour to enquire as to the vessel’s name and status, and having thoughtlessly gone on board her were forbidden by the port authorities to go off again. The friends found some alleviation from the tedium of the time through the kindness of Miss Cotterell’s brother, a banker in Naples, who kept them supplied with all manner of dainties and luxuries, and especially with abundance of fruit and flowers. ‘ Keats’, says Severn, ‘was never tired of admiring (not to speak of eating) the beautiful clusters of grapes and other fruits, and was scarce less enthusiastic over the autumn flowers, though I remember his saying once that he would gladly give them all for a wayside dogrose bush covered with pink blooms.’ The time of detention passed with a good deal of merriment, songs from the man-of-war’s men on board, songs, laughter, and gibes from the Neapolitan boatmen swarming round. In all this Keats would join, feverishly enough it is evident, and declared afterwards that he had made more puns in the course of those ten days than in any whole year of his life beside. Once he flashed into a characteristic heat of righteous wrath, when the seamen took to trolling obscene catches in full hearing of the ladies. On the fourth day of their detention he wrote to Mrs Brawne (to Fanny he dared not write, nor suffer his thoughts to dwell on her at all), saying what he thought of his own state:–<\/p>\n
We have to remain in the vessel ten days and are at present shut in a tier of ships. The sea air has been beneficial to me about to as great extent as squally weather and bad accommodations and provisions has done harm. So I am about as I was. Give my love to Fanny and tell her, if I were well there is enough in this Port of Naples to fill a quite of Paper–but it looks like a dream–every man who can row his boat and walk and talk seems a different being from myself. I do not feel in the world.<\/p>\n
It is impossible to describe exactly in what state of health I am–at this moment I am suffering from indigestion very much, which makes such stuff of this Letter. I would always wish you to think me a little worse than I really am; not being of a sanguine disposition I am likely to succeed. If I do not recover your regret will be softened–if I do your pleasure will be doubled. I dare not fix my Mind upon Fanny, I have not dared to think of her. The only comfort I have had that way has been in thinking for hours together of having the knife she gave me put in a silvercase–the hair in a Locket–and the Pocket Book in a gold net. Show her this. I dare say no more. Yet you must not believe I am so ill as this letter may look, for if ever there was a person born without the faculty of hoping I am he. Severn is writing to Haslam, and I have just asked him to request Haslam to send you his account of my health. O what an account I could give you of the Bay of Naples if I could once more feel myself a Citizen of this world–I feel a spirit in my Brain would lay it forth pleasantly–O what a misery it is to have an intellect in splints!<\/p>\n
Once released from quarantine and landed at Naples Severn wrote to Haslam fully his impressions of the voyage and of its effects on his friend.<\/p>\n
Naples, Nov. 1 1820.<\/p>\n
My dear Haslam,<\/p>\n
We are just released from the loathsome misery of quarantine–foul weather and foul air for the whole 10 days kept us to the small cabin–surrounded by about 2,000 ships in a wretched hole not sufficient for half the number, yet Keats is still living–may I not have hopes of him? He has passed what I must have thought would kill myself. Now that we are on shore and feel the fresh air, I am horror struck at his sufferings on this voyage, all that could be fatal to him in air and diet–with the want of medicine and conveniences he has weather’d it, if I may call his poor shattered frame and broken heart weathering it. For myself I have stood it firmly until this morning when in a moment my spirits dropt at the sight of his suffering–a plentiful shower of tears (which he did not see) has relieved me somewhat–what he passed still unnerves me. But now we are breathing in a large room with Vesuvius in our view–Keats has become calm and thinks favourably of this place for we are meeting with much kind treatment on every side–more particularly from an English gentleman here (brother to Miss Cottrell one of our lady passengers) who has shown unusually humane treatment to Keats–unasked–these with very good accommodation at our Inn (Villa de Londra) have kept him up through dinner–but on the other hand Dr Milner is at Rome (whither Keats is proposing to go) the weather is now cold wet and foggy, and we find ourselves on the wrong side for his hope for recovery (for the present I will talk to him–he is disposed to it. I will talk him to sleep for he has suffered much fatigue).<\/p>\n
Nov. 2.<\/p>\n
Keats went to bed much recovered–I took every means to remove from him a heavy grief that may tend more than anything to be fatal–he told me much–very much–and I don’t know whether it was more painful for me or himself–but it had the effect of much relieving him- he went very calm to bed. Poor fellow! he is still sleeping at half past nine, if I can but ease his mind I will bring him back to England we- but I fear it never can be done in this world–the grand scenery here affects him a little–but he is too infirm to enjoy it–his gloom deadens his sight to everything–and but for intervals of something like ease he must soon end it–<\/p>\n
You will like to know how I have managed in respect to self. I have had a most severe task full of contrarieties what I did one way was undone another. The lady passenger though in the same state as Keats–yet differing in constitution required almost everything the opposite to him–for instance if the cabin windows were not open she would faint and remain entirely insensible 5 or 6 hours together–if the windows were open poor Keats would be taken with a cough (a violent one–caught from this cause) and sometimes spitting of blood, now I had this to manage continually for our other passenger is a most consumate brute–she would see Miss Cottrell stiffened like a corpse–I have sometimes thought her dead–nor ever lend the least aid– full a dozen times I have recovered this lady and put her to bed –sometimes she would faint 4 times in a day yet at intervals would seem quite well–and was full of spirits–she is both young and lively–and but for her we should have had more heaviness –though much less trouble. She has benefited by Keats’s advice–I used to act under him–and reduced the fainting each time–she has recovered very much and gratefully ascribes it to us–her brother the same.<\/p>\n
The Captain has behaved with great kindness to us all–but more particularly Keats–everything that could be got or done– was at his service without asking–he is a good-natured man to his own injury–strange for a captain I won’t say so much for his ship–it’s a black hole–5 sleeping in one cabin–the one you saw–the only one–during the voyage I have been frequently sea-sick–sometimes severely–2 days together. We have had only one real fright on the seas–not to mention continued squalls–and a storm. ‘All’s well that ends well,’ and these ended well. Our fright was from two Portugese ships of war– they brought us to with a shot–which passed close under our stern–this was not pleasant for us you will allow–nor was it decreased when they came up–for a more internal set I never could imagine–after some trifling questions they allowed us to go on to our no small delight–our captain was afraid they would plunder the ship–this was in the Bay of Biscay–over which we were carried by a good wind.<\/p>\n
Keats has written to Brown–and in quarantine another to Mrs Brawne–he requests you will tell Mrs Brawne what I think of him–for he is too bad to judge of himself–this morning he is still very much better. We are in good spirits and I may say hopeful fellows–at least I may say as much for Keats–he made an Italian pun to-day–the rain is coming down in torrents.<\/p>\n
The confession Keats had made to Severn was of course that of the effects of the passion which had so long been racking and wasting him, and the violence of which he had shrunk till now from disclosing to friend or brother. Writing on the same day to Brown, he could not control or disguise the anguish of his heart.<\/p>\n
Naples, 1 November 1820.<\/p>\n
My dear Brown,<\/p>\n
Yesterday we were let out of Quarantine, during which my health suffered more from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done the whole voyage. The fresh air revived me a little, and I hope I am well enough this morning to write to you a short calm letter;–if that can be called one, in which I am afraid to speak of what I would fainest dwell upon. As I have gone thus far into it, I must go on a little; perhaps it may relieve the load of WRETCHEDNESS which presses upon me. The persuasion that I will see her no more will kill me. My dear Brown, I should have had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well. I can bear to die–I cannot bear to leave her. O God! God! God! Everything I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid about her–I see her–I hear her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case when I was in England; I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the time that I was a prisoner at Hunt’s, and used to keep my eyes fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing her again–Now!–O that I could be buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write to her –to receive a letter from her–to see her handwriting would break my heart–even to hear of her anyhow, to see her name written, would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what am I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease?<\/p>\n
I cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in the thousand novelties around me. I am afraid to write to her–I should like her to know that I do not forget her. Oh, Brown, I have coals of fire in my breast. It surprises me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end? God bless her, and her mother, and my sister, and George, and his wife, and you, and all!<\/p>\n
During the four days they remained at Naples Keats received a second invitation in the kindest possible terms from Shelley to come and settle near him in Pisa, but determined to carry out his original plan of wintering at Rome, where a credit has been opened for him at Torlonia’s and whither he was bringing a special introduction to Dr (afterwards Sir James) Clark. Severn was also the bearer of one from Sir Thomas Lawrence to Canova. Keats attempted to amuse himself reading Clarissa Harlowe, and also seeing some of the sights of Naples. After almost a century there has lately come to light a record, set down at second-hand and probably touched up in the telling, of some things noticed and words spoken by the stricken poet in drives about the city and suburbs in the friendly company of Mr Charles Cotterell, the brother of his invalid fellow-passenger. Keats was driving, says the narrator, Mr Charles Macfarlane,–<\/p>\n
–he was driving with Charles Cottrell from the Bourbon Museum, up the beautiful open road which leads up to Capo di Monte and the Ponte Rossi. On the way, in front of a villa or cottage, he was struck and moved by the sight of some rose trees in full bearing. Thinking to gratify the invalid, Cottrell, a ci-devant officer in the British Navy, jumped out of the carriage, spoke to somebody about the house or garden, and was back in a trice with a bouquet of roses. ‘How late in the year! What an exquisite climate I’ said the Poet; but on putting them to his nose, he threw the flowers down on the opposite seat, and exclaimed: ‘Humbugs! they have no scent I. What is a rose without its fragrance? I hate and abhor all humbug, whether in a flower or in a man or woman! And having worked himself strongly up in the anti-humbug humour, he cast the bouquet out on the road. I suppose that the flowers were China roses, which have little odour at any time, and hardly any at the approach of winter.<\/p>\n
Returning from that drive, he had intense enjoyment in halting close to the Capuan Gate, and in watching a group of lazzaroni or labouring men, as, at a stall with fire and cauldron by the roadside in the open air, they were disposing of an incredible quantity of macaroni, introducing it in long unbroken strings into their capacious mouths, without the intermediary of anything but their hands. ‘I like this,’ said he; ‘these hearty fellows scorn the humbug of knives and forks. Fingers were invented first. Give them some carlini that they may eat more! Glorious sight! How they take it in!'(88)<\/p>\n
But the political state and servile temper of the Neapolitan people–though they were living just then under the constitutional forms imposed on the Bourbon monarchy by the revolution of the previous summer-grated on Keats’s liberal instincts, and misinterpreting at the theatre the sight of a couple of armed sentries posted (as was the custom of the time and country) on the stage, he broke into a fit of anger and determined suddenly to leave the place. Accordingly on the 4th or 5th of November the friends set out for Rome in a small hired carriage, which jogged so loiteringly on the road that Severn was able to walk beside it almost all the way. Keats suffered seriously at the stopping-places from bad quarters and bad food, and was for the most part listless and dispirited, but would become animated ‘when an unusually fine prospect opened before us, or the breeze bore to us exquisite hill fragrances or breaths from the distant blue seas, and particularly when I literally filled the little carriage with flowers. He never tired of these, and they gave him a singular and almost fantastic pleasure which was at times almost akin to a strange joy.’ Entering Rome by the Lateran gate they settle at once in lodgings which Dr Clark, to whom Keats had written from Naples, had already secured for them, in the first house on the right going up the steps from the Piazza di Spagna to Sta Trinit\u00e0 dei Monti. Here, according to the manner of those days in Italy, they were left pretty much to shift for themselves. Neither could speak Italian, and at first they were ill served by the trattor\u00eca from which they got their meals, until Keats, having bidden Severn see how he would mend matters, one day coolly emptied all the dishes out of the window, and handed them back to the porter: a hint, says Severn, which was quickly taken. For a while the patient seemed better. Dr Clark wished him to avoid the excitement of seeing the famous monuments of the city, so he left Severn to visit these alone, and contented himself with quiet strolls, chiefly on the Pincian close by.<\/p>\n
The season was fine, and the freshness and brightness of the air, says Severn, invariably made him pleasant and witty. Clark gave Severn an introduction to Gibson, the then famous American sculptor, and Keats insisted on his delivering it at once and losing no opportunity of making acquaintances in Rome that might be useful to him, and no time in getting to work on his projected competition picture, ‘The Death of Alcibiades.’ In Severn’s absence Keats had a companion he liked in an invalid Lieutenant Elton. In their walks on the Pincian these two often met the famous beauty Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese. Her charms were by this time failing–but not for lack of exercise; and her melting glances at his companion, who was tall and handsome, presently affected Keats’s nerves, and made them change the direction of their walks. Sometimes, instead of walking, they would take short invalid rides, on hired mounts suited to their respective statutres, about the Pincian or outside the Porta del Popolo, while Severn was working among the ruins.<\/p>\n
The mitigation of Keats’s sufferings lasted for some five weeks, and filled the anxious heart of Severn with hope. Nevertheless he could not but be aware of the deep-seated dejection in his friend which found expression now and again in word or act, as when he began reading a volume of Alfieri, but dropped it at the lines, too sadly applicable to himself:–<\/p>\n
Misera me! sollievo a me non resta Altro che ‘l pianto, ed il pianto \u00e8 delitto.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding signs like this, his mood was on the whole more placid. Severn had hired a piano for their lodgings, and the patient often allowed himself to be soothed with music. His thoughts even turned towards verse, and he again meditated and spoke of his proposed poem on the subject of Sabrina. Severn began to believe he would get well, and on November 30 Keats himself wrote to Brown in a strain far from cheerful, indeed, but much less desperate than before:<\/p>\n
I have an habitual feeling of my real life having passed, and that I am leading a posthumous existence. God knows how it would have been–but it appears to me–however, I will not speak of that subject. I must have been at Bedhampton nearly at the time you were writing to me from Chichester–how unfortunate–and to pass on the river too! There was my star predominant! I cannot answer anything in your letter, which followed me from Naples to Rome, because I am afraid to look it over again. I am so weak (in mind) that I cannot bear the sight of any handwriting of a friend I love so much as I do you. Yet I ride the little horse, and, at my worst, even in quarantine, summoned up more puns, in a sort of desperation, in one week than in any year of my life. There is one thought enough to kill me; I have been well, healthy, alert, etc., walking with her, and now the knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade, all that information (primitive sense) necessary for a poem, are great enemies to the recovery of the stomach. There, you rogue, I put you to the torture; but you must bring your philosophy to bear, as I do mine, really, or how should I be able to live? Dr Clark is very attentive to me; he says there is very little the matter with my lungs, but my stomach, he says, is very bad. I am well disappointed in hearing good news from George, for it runs in my head we shall all die young. I have not written to Reynolds yet, which he must think neglectful; being anxious to send him a good account of my health, I have delayed it from week to week. If I recover, I will do all in my power to correct the mistakes made during sickness; and if I should not, all my faults will be forgiven. Severn is very well, though he leads so dull a life with me. Remember me to all friends, and tell Haslam I should not have left London without taking leave of him, but from being so low in body and mind. Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; and also a note to my sister–who walks about my imagination like a ghost–she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always make an awkward bow.<\/p>\n
God bless you!<\/p>\n
But on the glimmering hopes of these first weeks at Rome there suddenly followed despair. On Dec. 10, ‘when he was going on in good spirits, quite merrily,’ says Severn, came a relapse which left no doubt of the issue. Hmmorrhage followed h\u00e6morrhage on successsive days, and then came a period of violent fever, with scenes the most piteous and distressing. To put an end to his misery, Keats with agonies of entreaty begged to have the bottle of laudanum which Severn had by his desire bought at Gravesend: and on Severn’s refusal, ‘his tender appeal turned to despair, with all the power of his ardent imagination and bursting heart.’ It was no unmanly fear of pain in Keats, Severn again and again insists, that prompted this appeal, but above all his acute sympathetic sense of the trials which the sequel would bring upon his friend. ‘He explained to me the exact procedure of his gradual dissolution, enumerated my deprivations and toils, and dwelt upon the danger to my life and certainly to my fortune of my continued attendance on him.’ Severn gently holding firm, Keats for a while fiercely refused his friend’s ministrations, until presently the example of that friend’s patience and his own better mind made him ashamed.<\/p>\n
From these relapses until the end Severn had no respite from his devoted ministrations. Writing to Mrs Brawne a week after the crisis, he says, ‘Not a moment can I be from him. I sit by his bed and read all day, and at night I humour him in all his wanderings. He has just fallen asleep, the first sleep for eight nights, and now from mere exhaustion.’ By degrees the tumult of his soul abated. His sufferings were very great, partly from the nature of the disease itself, partly from the effect of the disastrous lowering and starving treatment at that day employed to combat it. His diet was at one time reduced to one anchovy and a small piece of toast a day, so that he endured cruel pangs of actual hunger. Shunned and neglected as the sick and their companions then were in Italy, the friends had no succour except from the assiduous kindness of Dr and Mrs Clark, with occasional aid from a stranger, Mr Ewing. The devotion and resource of Severn were infinite, and had their reward. Occasionally there came times of delirium or half-delirium, when the dying man would rave wildly of his miseries and his ruined hopes, and of all that he would have done in poetry had life and the fruition of his love been granted him, till his companion was almost exhausted with ‘beating about in the tempest of his mind’; and once and again some fresh remembrance of his betrothed, or the sight of her handwriting in a letter, would pierce him with too intolerable a pang. But generally, after the first days of storm, he lay quiet, with his hand clasped on a white cornelian, one of the little tokens she had given him at starting, while his companion soothed him with reading or music. The virulence of the reviewers, which most of his friends supposed to be what was killing him, was a matter, Severn declares, scarcely ever on his lips or in his mind at all. Gradually he seemed to mend and gather a little strength again, till Severn actually began to dream that he might even yet recover, though he himself would admit no such hope. ‘He says the continued stretch of his imagination has already killed him. He will not hear of his good friends in England, except for what they have done; and this is another load; but of their high hopes of him, his certain success, his experience, he will not hear a word. Then the want of some kind of hope to feed his voracious imagination’-This is from a letter to Mr Taylor which Sevem began on Christmas Eve and never finished. On the 11th January, in one conveying to Mrs Brawne the reviving hopes he was beginning on the slenderest grounds to cherish, Severn writes:–<\/p>\n
Now he has changed to calmness and quietude, as singular as productive of good, for his mind was most certainly killing him. He has now given up all thoughts, hopes, or even wish for recovery. His mind is in a state of peace from the final leave he has taken of this world and all its future hopes; this has been an immense weight for him to rise from. He remains quiet and submissive under his heavy fate. Now, if anything will recover him, it is this absence of himself. I have perceived for the last three days symptoms of recovery. Dr Clark even thinks so. Nature again revives in him–I mean where art was used before; yesterday he permitted me to carry him from his bedroom to our sitting-room–to put clean things on him–and to talk about my painting to him. This is my good news–don’t think it otherwise, my dear madam, for I have been in such a state of anxiety and discomfiture in this barbarous place, that the least hope of my friend’s recovery is a heaven to me.<\/p>\n
For three weeks I have never left him–I have sat up all night –I have read to him nearly all day, and even in the night–I light the fire–make his breakfast, and sometimes am obliged to cook–make his bed, and even sweep the room. I can have these things done, but never at the time when they must and ought to be done–so that you will see my alternative; what enrages me most is making a fire–I blow–blow for an hour-the smoke comes fuming out–my kettle falls over on the burning sticks–no stove–Keats calling me to be with him–the fire catching my hands and the door-bell ringing: all these to one quite unused and not at all capable–with the want of even proper material–come not a little galling. But to my great surprise I am not ill–or even restless–nor have I been all the time; there is nothing but what I will do for him–there is no alternative but what I think and provide myself against–except his death–not the loss of him–I am prepared to bear that–but the inhumanity, the barbarism of these Italians. . . .<\/p>\n
O! I would my unfortunate friend had never left your Wentworth Place–for the hopeless advantages of this comfortless Italy. He has many, many times talked over ‘the few happy days at your house, the only time when his mind was at ease.’ I hope still to see him with you again. Farewell, my dear madam. One more thing I must say–poor Keats cannot see any letters, at least he will not–they affect him so much and increase his danger. The two last I repented giving, he made me put them into his box–unread.<\/p>\n
The complaint about the barbarity of Rome and of Italian law was due to a warning Severn had received that on the death of his friend every stick and shred of furniture in the house would have to be burnt. Within a few days the last thread of hope was snapped by fresh returns of h\u00e6morrhage and utter prostration, with renewed feverish agitations of the tortured spirit. Writing to Haslam on January the 15th, Severn shows himself almost broken down by the imminence of money difficulties about to add themselves to his other cares:–<\/p>\n
Poor Keats has just fallen asleep–I have watched him and read to him–to his very last wink–he has been saying to me ‘ Severn I can see under your quiet look–immense twisting and contending–you don’t know what you are reading–you are enduring for me more than I’d have you–O that my last hour was come–what is it puzzles you now–what is it happens–‘ I tell him that ‘nothing happens–nothing worries me beyond his seeing–that it has been the dull day.’ Getting from myself to his recovery–and then my painting–and then England-and then–but they are all lies–my heart almost leaps to deny them–for I have the veriest load of care–that ever came upon these shoulders of mine. For Keats is sinking daily–perhaps another three weeks may lose me him for ever–this alone would break down the most gallant spirit–I had made sure of his recovery when I set out. I was selfish and thought of his value to me–and made a point of my future success depend on his candor to me–this is not all–I have prepared myself to bear this now–now that I must and should have seen it before-but Torlonias the bankers have refused any more money–the bill is returned unaccepted–‘no effects’ and I tomorrow must –aye must–pay the last solitary crown for this cursed lodging place–yet more should our unfortunate friend die–all the furniture will be burnt–bed sheets–curtains and even the walls must be scraped–and these devils will come upon me for \u00a3100 or \u00a3150–the making good–but above all this noble fellow lying on the bed is dying in horror–no kind hope smoothing down his suffering–no philosophy–no religion to support him –yet with all the most gnawing desire for it–yet without the possibility of receiving it. . . .<\/p>\n
Now Haslam what do you think of my situation–for I know not what may come with tomorrow–I am hedg’d in every way that you look at me–if I could leave Keats for a while every day I could soon raise money by my face painting–but he will not let me out of his sight–he cannot bear the face of a stranger-he has made me go out twice and leave him solus. I’d rather cut my tongue out than tell him that money I must get–that would kill him at a word–I will not do anything that may add to his misery–for I have tried on every point to leave for a few hours in the day but he wont unless he is left alone–this won’t do–nor shall not for another minute whilst he is John Keats.<\/p>\n
Yet will I not bend down under these–I will not give myself a jot of credit unless I stand firm–and will too–you’d be rejoiced to see how I am kept up–not a flinch yet–I read, cook, make the beds–and do all the menial offices–for no soul comes near Keats except the doctor and myself–yet I do all this with a cheerful heart–for I thank God my little but honest religion stays me up all through these trials. I’ll pray to God tonight that He may look down with mercy on my poor friend and myself. I feel no dread of what more I am to bear but look to it with confidence.<\/p>\n
In religion Keats had been neither a believer nor by any means (except in the earliest days of his enthusiasm for Leigh Hunt) a scoffer; respecting Christianity without calling himself a Christian, and by turns clinging to and drifting from the doctrine of human immortality. Now, on his death-bed, says Severn, among the most haunting and embittering of his distresses was the thought that not for him were those ready consolations of orthodoxy which were within the reach of every knave and fool. After a time, contrasting the steadfast behaviour of the believer Severn with his own, he acknowledged anew the power of the Christian teaching and example, and bidding Severn read to him from Jeremy Taylor Holy Dying and Holy Living, strove to pass the remainder of his days in a temper of more peace and constancy.<\/p>\n
The danger of money trouble must have been due to a pure misunderstanding, as the credit at Torlonia’s was in fact not exhausted, and a fresh communication from Mr Taylor removed all anxiety on that score. One day Keats was seized with a desire for books and was able for a time to take pleasure in reading those which Severn procured for him. Another and continual pleasure was Severn’s playing on the piano, and especially his playing of Haydn’s sonatas. ‘With all his suffering and consciousness of approaching death,’ wrote Severn in after years, ‘he never quite lost the play of his cheerful and elastic mind, yet these happier moments were but slight snatches from his misery, like the flickering rays of the sun in a smothering storm. Real rays of sunshine they were, all the same, such as would have done honour to the brightest health and the happiest mind: yet the storm of sickness and death was always going on, and I have often thought that these bursts of wit and cheerfulness were called up of set purpose–were, in fact, a great effort on my account.’<\/p>\n
Neither patient nor watcher thought any more of recovery. For a few days Severn had the help of an English nurse. It was doubtless then that Keats made his friend go and see the place chosen for his burial. ‘He expressed pleasure at my description of the locality of the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, about the grass and the many flowers, particularly the innumerable violets-also about a flock of goats and sheep and a young shepherd–all these intensely interested him. Violets were his favourite flowers, and he joyed to hear how they overspread the graves. He assured me that he seemed already to feel the flowers growing over him’: and it seems to have been gently and without bitterness that he gave for his epitaph the words, partly taken from a phrase in Beaumont and Fletcher Philaster,(89)-‘here lies one whose name was writ in water.’ Ever since his first attack at Wentworth Place he had been used to speak of himself as living a posthumous life, and now his habitual question to the doctor when he came in was, ‘Doctor, when will this posthumous life of mine come to an end?’ As he turned to ask it neither physician nor friend could bear the pathetic expression of his eyes, at all times of extraordinary power, and now burning with a sad and piercing unearthly brightness in his wasted cheeks. Once or twice he was torn again by too sharp a reminder of vanished joys and hopes. Severn handed him a letter which he supposed to be from Mrs Brawne, but which was really from her daughter. ‘The glance of that letter tore him to pieces. The effects were on him for many days-he did not read it–he could not, but requested me to place it in his coffin together with a purse and a letter (unopened) of his sister’s–since which time he has requested me not to place that letter, but only his sister’s purse and letter with some hair.’ Loveable and considerate to the last, ‘his generous concern for me,’ reiterates Severn, ‘in my isolated position at Rome was one of his greatest cares.’ His response to kindness was irresistibly winning, and the spirit of poetry and pleasantness was with him to the end. Severn tells how in watching Keats he used sometimes to fall asleep, and awakening, find they were in the dark. ‘To remedy this one night I tried the experiment of fixing a thread from the bottom of a lighted candle to the wick of an unlighted one, that the flame might be conducted, all which I did without telling Keats. When he awoke and found the first candle nearly out, he was reluctant to wake me and while doubting suddenly cried out, ” Severn, Severn, here’s a little fairy lamplighter actually lit up the other candle.”‘ And again: ‘Poor Keats has me ever by him, and shadows out the form of one solitary friend: he opens his eyes in great doubt and horror, but when they fall on me they close gently, open quietly and close again, till he sinks to sleep.’<\/p>\n
Life held out for six weeks after the second relapse, but from the first days of February the end was visibly drawing near. On one of his nights of vigil Severn occupied himself in making that infinitely touching death-bed drawing in black and white of his friend with which all readers are familiar. Between the 14th and 22nd of February Severn wrote letters to Brown, to Mrs Brawne, and to Haslam to prepare them for the worst and to tell them of the reconciled and tranquil state into which the dying man had fallen. Death came very peacefully at last. On the 23rd of that month, writes Severn, ‘about four, the approaches of death came on. ‘ Severn–I–lift me up–I am dying –I shall die easy; don’t be frightened–be firm, and thank God it has come.’ I lifted him up in my arms. The phlegm seemed boiling in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sank into death, so quiet, that I still thought he slept.’ Three days later his body was carried, attended by several of the English in Rome who had heard his story, to its grave in that retired and verdant cemetery which for his sake and Shelley’s has become a place of pilgrimage to the English-speaking world for ever.<\/p>\n
FOOTNOTES<\/h4>\n
87. Unless Brown had transcribed ‘morning’ for ‘moving’ in error; and this was probably the case, though there is a tempting sonority in the juxtaposition of the nearly identical broad vowel sounds in his version.<\/p>\n
88. Reminiscences of a Literary Life, by Charles Macfarlane: London, John Murray, 1917, pp. 12-15.–Keats in his letters is apt enough to talk of cant and flummery, but not of humbug, and I suspect the word, though not the thought, is put into his mouth. With reference to Mr Macfarlane’s account of Keats generally as ‘one of the most cheery and plucky little fellows I ever knew,’ and as a man to have stood with composure a whole broadside of Blackwood and Quarterly articles, and to have faced, a battery by the side of any friend, it is difficult to conjecture at what date the writer can have seen enough of Keats to form these impressions. From January 1816, when he was in his seventeenth year, to 1827, young Macfarlane seems to have lived entirely at Naples, except for some excursions to the Levant and a short visit to England in 1820, when Keats was a consumptive patient already starting or started for Italy.<\/p>\n
89. Act v, Se. iii. See Harrison S. Morris in Bulletin and Review of the Keats-Shelley Memorial, 1913, p. 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHAPTER XVI AUGUST 1820-FEBRUARY 1821: VOYAGE TO ITALY: LAST DAYS AND DEATH AT ROME Resolve to winter in Italy–Severn as companion–The ‘ Maria Crowther’ –Fellow passengers–Storm in the Channel–Held up in the Solent-Landing near Lulworth–The ‘Bright Star’ sonnets–The voyage resumed–A meditated poem–Incidents at sea–Quarantine at Naples –Letters from Keats and Haslam–Lady passengers described–A cry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4840,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions\/4840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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