Keats Bicentenary

These images were created last summer when exploring Keats life and connection to St Thomas Hospital. I have selected a few to share today to mark the bicentenary of his death. His life and work continue to resonate  and inspire, offering a  rich seam I intend to continue to explore.

 
​"I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days- three such days with you I  could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain".  

Keats letter to Fanny Brawne written July 3 1819. 

"The spring was always inchantment  [sic] to me- I would get away from suffering- in watching the growth of a little flower, it was a delight to me - it was part of my very soul - perhaps the only happiness I have had in the world has been the silent growth of flowers"

A response Keats made a few weeks before his death Keats to Severin's report of the first signs of spring returning. (here)

  
"...then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink"

John Keats The Terror of Death. 1817

"That queen of secrecy, the violet." 
John Keats  Blue Eyes 1815

"Great spirits now on earth are sojourning:
 ...And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses - hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings in the human mart? 
Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb."

John Keats To Benjamin Robert Haydon 1816.

"Stop and consider! Life is but a day;
A fragile dewdrop on it's perilous way"
​
John Keats From Sleep and Poetry, 1816

"After dark vapours have oppress'd our plains,
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle south, and clears away,
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains"

John Keats  After Dark Vapours, 1817.