In his pocket was found a copy of Keats's
poems doubled back, as if he had been reading to the last moment
and hastily thrust the book into his pocket. The body was
cremated upon the shore, and the ashes were buried in the
Protestant cemetery at Rome, not far from the grave of Keats.
"It is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with
violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to
think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." So Shelley
himself had written in the preface to Adonais.
Over his grave was placed a simple stone with the date of his
birth and death and the words "Cor Cordium"--heart of hearts.
Beneath these words are some lines from the Tempest which Shelley
had loved--
"Nothing of him doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
BOOKS TO READ
Poems of Shelley, selected and arranged for use in schools, by E.
E. Speight.
Chapter LXXXI KEATS--THE POET OF BEAUTY
JOHN KEATS, the poet whose death Shelley mourned in Adonais, was
by a few years the younger, having been born in 1795.
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