The tomb is an upright head-stone, simple but massive, with the well-known inscription:—
“This Grave
Contains all that was Mortal
of a
Young English Poet
Who
on his Death Bed
in the Bitterness of his Heart
at the Malicious Power of his Enemies
Desired
these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone:
“Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water.”
Feb. 24th 1821”
A marble bar runs around the sides and foot, and the space enclosed is literally covered with violets. An English lady pays the expense of their renewal as fast as they die, or are plucked. They must bloom forever upon the grave of Keats. So runs her order.
The custodian added to those he gave us, a rose and a sprig of a fragrant shrub that grew by the head-stone, and wondered politely when I knelt to pick the daisies smiling in the grass.
“I gather and I shall preserve them,” I explained, “because when Keats was dying, he said—‘I feel the daisies growing over me!’”
Daisies thronged the place all winter, and blossomed as abundantly in the sward on the other side of the moat. The most distinct mind-picture I have of those Sabbath afternoon walks and talks among and beside the dead shows me the broken battlements of the wall, the ivy streaming through the useless loop-holes; the flowery slope of the graves down to the moat, on the other side of which lies Keats under his fragrant coverlet; the solemn old pyramid casting a shadow upon turf and tomb, and in the foreground Boy skipping over the grass, “telling himself a story,” very softly because the silent sleepers are so near, or busily picking daisies to add to the basket of flowers that are to fill our salle with perfume until we come again.
“So sweet a spot!”