The Poetry of Fingal's Cave (with links to Macpherson's Ossian & Mendelssohn's Overture)

The English Romantic poet John Keats visited the island of Staffa in July 1818, accompanied
by his friend Charles Brown. Keats was just as captivated by the wild beauty of the island
and Fingal’s cave, as Felix Mendelssohn was 11 years later.

Staffa, the Island

Fingal’s Cave

John Keats (1795–1821)

NOT Aladdin magian Ever such a work began; Not the wizard of the Dee Ever such a dream could see; Not Saint John, in Patmos’ isle,         5 In the passion of his toil, When he saw the churches seven, Golden aisled, built up in heaven, Gazed at such a rugged wonder! As I stood its roofing under,         10 Lo! I saw one sleeping there, On the marble cold and bare; While the surges washed his feet, And his garments white did beat, Drenched about the sombre rocks;         15 On his neck his well-grown locks, Lifted dry above the main, Were upon the curl again. “What is this? and what art thou?” Whispered I, and touched his brow;         20 “What art thou? and what is this?” Whispered I, and strove to kiss The spirit’s hand, to wake his eyes. Up he started in a trice: “I am Lycidas,” said he,         25 “Famed in fun’ral minstrelsy! This was architectured thus By the great Oceanus!— Here his mighty waters play Hollow organs all the day;         30 Here, by turns, his dolphins all, Finny palmers, great and small, Come to pay devotion due,— Each a mouth of pearls must strew! Many a mortal of these days         35 Dares to pass our sacred ways; Dares to touch, audaciously, This cathedral of the sea! I have been the pontiff-priest, Where the waters never rest,         40 Where a fledgy sea-bird choir Soars forever! Holy fire I have hid from mortal man; Proteus is my sacristan! But the dulled eye of mortal         45 Hath passed beyond the rocky portal; So forever will I leave Such a taint, and soon unweave All the magic of the place.” So saying, with a spirit’s glance         50 He dived!

Mendelssohn: Fingal's Cave Overture (The Hebrides)

• "The Hebrides Overture" also known as "Fingal's Cave," is a concert overture composed by Felix Mendelssohn. Written in 1830, the piece was inspired by the German composer's trip to Scotland in 1829. Fingal's Cave itself is a cavern on Staffa, an island in the Hebrides archipelago located off the coast of Scotland. The opening bars of the famous theme were actually written the day before the composer visited the cave.
• The music, though labelled as an overture, is intended to stand as a complete work. The piece was completed on December 16, 1830 and was originally entitled "The Lonely Island." However, Mendelssohn later revised the score completing it by June 20, 1832 and re-titling the music "The Hebrides." The overture was premiered on May 14, 1832 in London.
• Mendelssohn was enchanted by Scotland and the Staffa scenery in particular. However, it appears that the journey to the tiny Hebridian island was not so enjoyable. He wrote from the comfort of dry land some days later, "How much has happened since my last letter and this! The most fearful sickness, Staffa, scenery, travels and people."
• Naturalist Sir Joseph Banks discovered the cave in 1772 while on a natural history expedition to Iceland. It was named after Fingal, the hero of an epic poem by 18th-century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson. Mendelssohn's overture popularized the cave as a tourist destination and during Victorian times paddle steamers landed 300 people a day on the island.
• The opening few minutes of the overture are played in the 1943 movie The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp while Roger Livesey's character Clive Candy visits his German friend in a Prisoner of War camp.

Pink Floyd - Oenone

(based on Fingal's Cave)

References

Wikipedia - Fingals Cave

Wikipedia - James Macpherson

Wikipedia - Ossian

Ossian (/ˈɒʃən, ˈɒsiən/; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: Oisean) is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson from 1760. Macpherson claimed to have collected word-of-mouth material in Gaelic, said to be from ancient sources, and that the work was his translation of that material. Ossian is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a legendary bard who is a character in Irish mythology. Contemporary critics were divided in their view of the work's authenticity, but the consensus since is that Macpherson framed the poems himself, based on old folk tales he had collected.

The work was internationally popular, translated into all the literary languages of Europe and was highly influential both in the development of the Romantic movement and the Gaelic revival. "The contest over the authenticity of Macpherson's pseudo-Gaelic productions," Curley asserts, "became a seismograph of the fragile unity within restive diversity of imperialGreat Britain in the age of Johnson." Macpherson's fame was crowned by his burial among the literary giants in Westminster Abbey. W.P. Ker, in the Cambridge History of English Literature, observes that "all Macpherson's craft as a philological impostor would have been nothing without his literary skill."

The Poems of Ossian, by James Macpherson

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ossian/index.htm

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A unique basalt formation known as Fingal’s Cave
gilds the uninhabited volcanic island of Staffa.

Fingal’s Cave:
Scotland’s Eerie & Tuneful Cave
Discovered in 1772
https://m.thevintagenews.com/2017/05/25/fingals-cave-scotlands-eerie-tuneful-cave-discovered-in-1772/

by Ian Harvey

May 25, 2017

Owned by the National Trust for Scotland as part of a National Nature Reserve, the cave is known for its eerie melody, caused by natural acoustics.

Discovered in 1772, Fingal’s Cave gained fame when the Scottish poet-historian James Macpherson wrote an epic poem about an eponymous hero in the 18th century. The hero of the poem was known as Fionn mac Cumhaill, meaning “white stranger” in Irish mythology.

According to the legend of the Giant’s Causeway, Fionn built the causeway between Scotland and Ireland, inspiring Macpherson, and the cave was named in Fionn’s honor.

Fingal’s Cave, Island of Staffa, Scotland

A key part of Macpherson’s legacy is the cave’s original name, “An Uamh Bhin,” or the “melodious” cave, changed into “Fingal’s Cave” by Sir Joseph Banks in 1772 when Macpherson’s popularity was still high.

The origin of the cave is a frequent question among the tourists for whom the place is a favorite stopping point. Apparently, the magnificent eerie cave was formed from hexagonal basalt columns within an approximately 60 million-year-old lava flow.

Fingal’s cave entrance

After cooling, the upper and lower structures started fracturing and turned into a block tetragonal pattern, and transitioned to a regular hexagonal fracture pattern. As the cooling continued, the cracks extended toward the center of the flow, forming the long three- to eight-sided columns visible in the wave-eroded cross-section.

When observing the cave from a distance, you can’t miss its oval large entrance occasionally filled with water from the sea.

Although the entrance is big, boats can’t enter into the depths of the cave unless the sea is very calm. However, boats aren’t the only option for sneaking into the cave or just to take a closer look at the formation.

Basalt columns inside Fingal’s Cave. – By Hartmut Josi Bennöhr – CC BY-SA 3.0

Several local cruise and charter companies offer an exploration tour of the cave from April to October.

It’s also possible to land on the island and explore the cave by stepping over some of the fractured columns forming a walkway over the water.

Tourists find this way of exploring the cave exciting since it gives them the freedom to observe its formations closely and ability to hear more clearly the echoes of waves splashing inside.

Entrance to Fingal’s cave. – By Hartmut Josi Bennöhr – CC BY-SA 3.0

View from the depths of the cave, with the island of Iona visible

in the background, 2008. – By N2e CC BY-SA 3.0

Some visitors say that the melody formed by the echoes of waves is similar to ones that can be heard in cathedrals, and to some, the cave is a natural cathedral.

One of the most beautiful sights from the inside of the cave is the entrance, described as a perfect frame to the island Iona across the sea.

Besides being an attraction for tourists, Fingal’s Cave remains a muse to many important artists, such as the romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn, author Jules Verne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, the playwright August Strindberg, Pink Floyd, and the English engraver of portraits and landscapes, James Fittler. And it is described by the revered Scots novelist Sir Walter Scott as one of the most extraordinary places on Earth.

Engraving of Fingal’s Cave by James Fittler in Scotia Depicta, 1804

Staffa top. By Hartmut Josi Bennöhr – CC BY-SA 3.0

Some writers were inspired enough to mention the cave in their poems and books, while others named their songs after the famous cave.

Even the movie adaptation of the novel When Eight Bells Toll was filmed there, with Anthony Hopkins in the leading role.

Those who decide to visit the island will see some spectacular coastal sights, crystal clear sea and, of course, the famous Fingal’s Cave, eclipsing everything with its grandeur.

* * * * * * * * *

Scotland Trip Full Film HD

Published on Feb 25, 2017

The Highlands, Oban. Lochgilphead. Loch Fyne, Inveraray, Largs, Loch Lomond, Great Cumbrae, Staffa, Iona, Iona Abbey, Hebrides, Iona Nunnery, Isle of Mull, Staffa, Iona, Oban, Fingal's Cave, Basking Shark, Birdlife, Puffins, Bird Sanctuary, Seahouses, Guillemots, 6th Century history. St Aidan and St Cuthbert, The herring boat houses, Lindisfarne Castle, Priory, St. Mary's Church.

John Keats - Song of the Indian Maid (from Endymion)

Poet John Keats

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

John Keats. 1795–1821

623. Song of the Indian Maid FROM 'ENDYMION'

O SORROW!
Why dost borrow
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?—
To give maiden blushes
To the white rose bushes?	5
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?—
To give the glow-worm light?	10
Or, on a moonless night,
To tinge, on siren shores, the salt *sea-spry?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?—	15
To give at evening pale
Unto the nightingale,
That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow	20
Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?—
A lover would not tread
A cowslip on the head,
Though he should dance from eve till peep of day—
Nor any drooping flower	25
Held sacred for thy bower,
Wherever he may sport himself and play.
To Sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;	30
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her
And so leave her,	35
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept,—
And so I kept	40
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a-weeping: what enamour'd bride,
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,	45
But hides and shrouds
Beneath dark palm-trees by a river side?
And as I sat, over the light blue hills
There came a noise of revellers: the rills
Into the wide stream came of purple hue—	50
'Twas Bacchus and his crew!
The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills
From kissing cymbals made a merry din—
'Twas Bacchus and his kin!
Like to a moving vintage down they came,	55
Crown'd with green leaves, and faces all on flame;
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
To scare thee, Melancholy!
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly	60
By shepherds is forgotten, when in June
Tall chestnuts keep away the sun and moon:—
I rush'd into the folly!
Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,	65
With sidelong laughing;
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued
His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white
For Venus' pearly bite;
And near him rode Silenus on his ass,	70
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass
Tipsily quaffing.
'Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye,
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your bowers desolate,	75
Your lutes, and gentler fate?'—
'We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing,
A-conquering!
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:—	80
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be
To our wild minstrelsy!'
'Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye,
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left	85
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?'—
'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
And cold mushrooms;
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;	90
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be
To our mad minstrelsy!'
Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent,	95
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,
With Asian elephants:
Onward these myriads—with song and dance,
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance,
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles,	100
Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files,
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil
Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil:
With toying oars and silken sails they glide,
Nor care for wind and tide.	105
Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes,
From rear to van they scour about the plains;
A three days' journey in a moment done;
And always, at the rising of the sun,
About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn,	110
On spleenful unicorn.
I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown
Before the vine-wreath crown!
I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing
To the silver cymbals' ring!	115
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce
Old Tartary the fierce!
The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearlèd hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,	120
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.
Into these regions came I, following him,
Sick-hearted, weary—so I took a whim
To stray away into these forests drear,	125
Alone, without a peer:
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.
Young Stranger!
I've been a ranger
In search of pleasure throughout every clime;	130
Alas! 'tis not for me!
Bewitch'd I sure must be,
To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.
Come then, Sorrow,
Sweetest Sorrow!	135
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:
I thought to leave thee,
And deceive thee,
But now of all the world I love thee best.
There is not one,	140
No, no, not one
But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;
Thou art her mother,
And her brother,
Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade.	145

*GLOSS:  [sea-spry] sea-spray. - Source Credit: Bartleby.com - http://www.bartleby.com/101/623.html

John Keats - Ode to a Nightingale

Poet John Keats

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

John Keats. 1795–1821

624. Ode to a Nightingale

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,	5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.	10
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!	15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:	20
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,	25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.	30
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,	35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.	40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;	45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.	50
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,	55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.	60
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path	65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.	70
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades	75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?	80

Source: Bartleby.com - http://www.bartleby.com/101/624.html

John Keats, 1795-1821

Ode to a Nightingale: Written May 1819, Publ January 1829

Biography

http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/john_keats.shtml

To some he is the king of the Romantic poets. John Keats only lived for 25 years, but in that time managed to produce an array of sensual poems that have reverberated across literature and popular culture.

Born in 1795, Keats came from a modest background and had lost both his parents by the time he was 15. From a young age he wanted to be a poet, but studied medicine at Guy's Hospital. There he began communicating with Leigh Hunt, an established poet who praised Keats' work and encouraged him to give up his studies and concentrate on literature full-time. Keats developed the notion of "negative capability" - the idea that the poet must be able to lose himself in an imaginative experience to create great poetry.

The struggle of the poet to achieve this ideal state is explored in poems such as Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn . Around 1818 Keats contracted tuberculosis. The following year he met the unrequited love of his life Fanny Brawne, and it is this period which gave rise to the beguilingly beautiful odes for which he is best remembered. In summer 1820 Keats travelled to Italy to recuperate. However he fell ill during the journey and died in 1821. He is buried in Rome, under the epitaph: 'Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.'

Keats' impact is hard to overestimate. Keats didn't just stir fellow poets, such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, his influence can still be found in books as wildly diverse as Neil Gaiman's graphic novels and science fiction writer Dan Simmons. 

The Romantics - Liberty (BBC documentary)

The Romantics - Eternity (BBC documentary) BBC History Essentials

Byron, Keats and Shelley lived short lives, but the radical

way in which they lived them would change the world.

For additional notes, summary, and analysis link here to Keats' Kingdom

or 

Wikipedia's John Keats biography.

References

John Keats - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

Ode to a Nightingale - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_a_Nightingale

John Keat's Six Odes of 1819 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats%27s_1819_odes

Analysis - http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/nighting.html

Study Guide - http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides8/Nightingale.html#Top

John Keats - Biography

John Keats, 1795-1821

http://www.online-literature.com/keats/

Biography written by C. D. Merriman for Jalic Inc.

Copyright Jalic Inc. 2007. All Rights Reserved.


John Keats (1795-1821), renowned poet of the English Romantic Movement, wrote some of the greatest English language poems including "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Ode To A Nightingale", and "Ode On a Grecian Urn":

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in Moorgate, London, England, the first child born to Frances Jennings (b.1775-d.1810) and Thomas Keats (d.1804), an employee of a livery stable. He had three siblings: George (1797-1841), Thomas (1799-1818), and Frances Mary "Fanny" (1803-1889). After leaving school in Enfield, Keats went on to apprentice with Dr. Hammond, a surgeon in Edmonton. After his father died in a riding accident, and his mother died of tuberculosis, John and his brothers moved to Hampstead. It was here that Keats met Charles Armitage Brown (1787-1842) who would become a great friend. Remembering his first meeting with him, Brown writes "His full fine eyes were lustrously intellectual, and beaming (at that time!)". Much grieved by his death, Brown worked for many years on his memoir and biography, Life of John Keats (1841). In it Brown claims that it was not until Keats read Edmund Spencer's Faery Queen that he realised his own gift for the poetic. Keats was an avid student in the fields of medicine and natural history, but he then turned his attentions to the literary works of such authors as William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer.

Keats had his poems published in the magazines of the day at the encouragement of many including James Henry Leigh Hunt Esq. (1784-1859), editor of the Examiner and to whom Keats dedicated his first collection Poems (1817). It includes "To My Brother George", "O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell", and "Happy is England! I Could Be Content". Upon its appearance a series of personal attacks directed at Keats ensued in the pages of Blackwood's Magazine. Despite the controversy surrounding his life, Keats's literary merit prevailed. That same year Keats met Percy Bysshe Shelley who would also become a great friend. When Shelley invited the ailing Keats to stay with him and his family in Italy, he declined. When Shelley's body was washed ashore after drowning, a volume of Keats's poetry was found in his pocket.

Having worked on it for many months, Keats finished his epic poem comprising four books, Endymion: A Poetic Romance--"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever"--in 1818. That summer he travelled to the Lake District of England and on to Ireland and Scotland on a walking tour with Brown. They visited the grave of Robert Burns and reminisced upon John Milton's poetry. While he was not aware of the seriousness of it, Keats was suffering from the initial stages of the deadly infectious disease tuberculosis. He cut his trip short and upon return to Hampstead immediately tended to his brother Tom who was then in the last stages of the disease. After Tom's death in December of 1818, Keats lived with Brown.

Early one morning I was awakened in my bed by a pressure on my hand. It was Keats, who came to tell me his brother was no more. I said nothing, and we both remained silent for awhile, my hand fast locked in his. At length, my thoughts returning from the dead to the living, I said--'Have 'nothing more to do with those lodgings,--and 'alone too. Had you not better live with me?' He paused, pressed my hand warmly, and replied,-'I think it would be better.' From that moment he was my inmate. 

- Life of John Keats by Charles Armitage Brown, 1841

Around this time Keats met, fell in love with, and became engaged to eighteen year old Frances "Fanny" Brawne (1800-1865). He wrote one of his more famous sonnets to her titled "Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art". While their relationship inspired much spiritual development for Keats, it also proved to be tempestuous, filled with the highs and lows from jealousy and infatuation of first love. Brown was not impressed and tried to provide some emotional stability to Keats. Many for a time were convinced that Fanny was the cause of his illness, or, used that as an excuse to try to keep her away from him. For a while even Keats entertained the possibility that he was merely suffering physical manifestations of emotional anxieties--but after suffering a hemorrhage he gave Fanny permission to break their engagement. She would hear nothing of it and by her word provided much comfort to Keats in his last days that she was ultimately loyal to him.

Although 1819 proved to be his most prolific year of writing, Keats was also in dire financial straits. His brother George had borrowed money he could ill-afford to part with. His earning Fanny's mother's approval to marry depended on his earning as a writer and he started plans with his publisher John Taylor (1781-1864) for his next volume of poems. At the beginning of 1820 Keats started to show more pronounced signs of the deadly tuberculosis that had killed his mother and brother. After a lung hemorrhage, Keats calmly accepted his fate, and he enjoyed several weeks of respite under Brown's watchful eye. As was common belief at the time that bleeding a patient was beneficial to healing, Keats was bled and given opium to relieve his anxiety and pain. He was at times put on a starvation diet, then at other times prescribed to eat meat and drink red wine to gain strength. Despite these ill-advised good-intentions, and suffering increasing weakness and fever, Keats was able to emerge from his fugue and organise the publication of his next volume of poetry.

Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820) includes some of his best-known and oft-quoted works: "Hyperion", "To Autumn", and "Ode To A Nightingale". "Nightingale" evokes all the pain and suffering that Keats experienced during his short life-time: the death of his mother; the physical anguish he saw as a young apprentice tending to the sick and dying at St. Guy's Hospital; the death of his brother; and ultimately his own physical and spiritual suffering in love and illness. Keats lived to see positive reviews of Lamia, even in Blackwood's magazine. But the positivity was not to last long; Brown left for Scotland and the ailing Keats lived with Hunt for a time. But it was unbearable to him and only exacerbated his condition--he was unable to see Fanny, so, when he showed up at the Brawne's residence in much emotional agitation, sick, and feverish, they could not refuse him. He enjoyed a month with them, blissfully under the constant care of his beloved Fanny. Possibly bolstered by his finally having unrestricted time with her, and able to imagine a happy future with her, Keats considered his last hope of recovery of a rest cure in the warm climes of Italy. As a parting gift Fanny gave him a piece of marble which she had often clasped to cool her hand. In September of 1820 Keats sailed to Rome with friend and painter Joseph Severn (1793-1879, who was unaware of his circumstances with Fanny and the gravity of his health.

Keats put on a bold front but it soon became apparent to Severn that he was terminally ill. They stayed in rooms on the Piazza Navona near the Spanish Steps, and enjoyed the lively sights and sounds of the people and culture, but Keats soon fell into a deep depression. When his attending doctor James Clark (1788-1870) finally voiced aloud the grim prognosis, Keats's medical background came to the fore and he longed to end his life and avoid the humiliating physical and mental torments of tuberculosis. By early 1821 he was confined to bed, Severn a devoted nurse. Keats had resolved not to write to Fanny and would not read a letter from her for fear of the pain it would cause him, although he constantly clasped her marble. During bouts of coughing, fever, nightmares, Keats also tried to cheer his friend, who held him till the end.

John Keats died on 23 February 1821 in Rome, Italy, and now rests in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, by the pyramid of Caius Cestius, near his friend Shelley. His epitaph reads "Here lies one whose name was writ in water", inspired by the line "all your better deeds, Shall be in water writ" from Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher's (1579-1625) five act play Philaster or: Love Lies A-bleeding. Just a year later, Shelley was buried in the same cemetery, not long after he had written "Adonais" (1821) in tribute to his friend;

I weep for Adonais--he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"

- Adonais by Shelley, 1821

Fanny Brawne married in 1833 and died at the age of sixty-five. English poet and friend of Brown's, Richard Monckton Milnes (1809-1885) wrote Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats (1848). During his lifetime and since, John Keats inspired numerous other authors, poets, and artists, and remains one of the most widely read and studied 19th century poets.

List of poems by John Keats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poems_by_John_Keats

Odes

• Ode to a Nightingale
• Ode on a Grecian Urn
• Ode to Psyche
• To Autumn
• Ode on Melancholy
• Ode on Indolence

• Ode to Fancy
• Ode - (Bards of Passion and of Mirth)
• Lines on the Mermaid Tavern
• Robin Hood - To a Friend
• Ode to Apollo

Other poems by John Keats

• I stood tiptoe upon a little hill
• Specimen of an induction to a poem
• Calidore - a fragment
• To Some Ladies
• On Receiving a Curious Shell, and a Copy of Verses from the Same Ladies
• To - Georgiana Augusta Wylie, afterwards Mrs. George Keats
• To Hope
• Imitation of Spenser
• Three Sonnets on Woman
• Sleep and Poetry
• On Death
• Women, Wine, and Snuff
• Fill For Me a Brimming Bowl
• Isabella or The Pot of Basil
• To a Young Lady who Sent Me a Laurel Crown
• On Receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt
• To the Ladies who Saw me Crown'd
• Hymn to Apollo
• The Eve of St. Agnes

Epistles

• To George Felton Mathew
• To My Brother George
• To Charles Cowden Clarke

Sonnets

• To My Brother George
• To - [Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs]
• Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left Prison
• How many bards gild the lapses of time!
• To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
• To G. A. W. [Georgiana Augusta Wylie]
• O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell
• To My Brothers
• Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there
• To one who has been long in city pent
• On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
• On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour
• Addressed to Haydon
• On the Grasshopper and Cricket
• To Koscuisko
• Happy is England! I could be content
• Sonnet on Peace
• Sonnet to Byron
• Sonnet to Chatterton
• Sonnet to Spenser

Endymion

• Book I
• Book II
• Book III
• Book IV

Lamia

• Lamia - part 1
• Lamia - part 2

Hyperion - A Fragment

• Hyperion - Book I
• Hyperion - Book II
• Hyperion - Book III