John Keats, for twenty-six short years you burned

With fever, till you died on Severn's shoulder.

You lost the greener crown you might have earned,

John Keats, if you had lived till you were older.

Your name was writ in water, so you said,

Your work unfinished and your young heart broken.

You died not dreaming how your spirit sped

In brightness every time your name was spoken.

John Keats, I wish you might have known the nights

That I would read your book, the shadows creeping

Large on the wall from my three candle lights.

I wish, John Keats, you could have seen me sleeping,

The candle smoke grown tall, and then no spark,

And all your words around me in the dark.