Tabb Centenary Year LVIII

A sonnet on John Keats by Rev. John B. Tabb.

At Keats’s Grave

“I feel the flowers growing over me.”
Prophetic thought! Behold, no cypress gloom
Portrays in dim memorial the doom
That quenched the ray of starlike destiny!
E’en death itself deals tenderly with thee;
For here, the livelong year, the violets bloom
And swing their fragrant censers till the tomb
Forgets the legend of mortality.
Nay, while the pilgrim periods of time
Alternate song and holy requiem sing,
As through the circling centuries sublime
They scatter frost, or genial sunshine bring,
With gathered sweets of every varying clime
They weave around thee one perpetual spring.

1882 (p. 298, Sonnets)

[English poet John Keats was born this day, October 31, 1821. The opening line of the poem was attributed to Keats by a friend of his.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 10/31/09 09:41:46 PM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.