by Keats · Cluster: Mortality · Grave · Memento Mori
Abstract
A brief, intense blank-verse fragment (‘This living hand’) imagining the poet’s hand cold in the tomb haunting the beloved; mortality, the grave and possessive love made tangible.
Connections
Topoi: Memento Mori Motifs: Grave, Blood, Ghosts Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Romantic Love Forms & Genres: Fragment
Testo integrale / Full text
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d - see here it is -
I hold it towards you.