Ode To Thy Legacy

When I was 16 I was irrevocably in love with John Keats. His words and story touched me so deeply that my final written project in my senior year was an ode to Keats himself. It’s been 11 years since anyone has seen this piece but wanted to share it with the world before I lose the original copy forever. It is written in an old English style with references to many of his poems and well as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I hope you can find both the pleasure and pain reading this as much as I did writing it.

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ODE TO THY LEGACY

O serenader, sing thy sweet psalms to my suffering soul

And let thy soft lips lull my disconcerted psyche

Into thy realm of splendorous radiance

Where ye sit in lone splendor, smiling sweetly,

Surrounded by wondrously prosperous treasures.

Where thy Nightingale sings in full-throated ease

And thy lasting sorrows cease at last.

Where Apollo’s rosy disc shines in felicity

And serenely caresses thy tender cheeks.

O serenader, sing thy sweet psalms to my suffering soul

O serenader, sermanise thy silent melodies to my sensual ear

And press thy deathless kiss upon my sinless pilgrims

To bestow upon me wings of secular poesy

And send, soaring through the still and steadfast sky

That slowly swoons into an incalescent dusk.

Now, as Cynthia gazes from her silken curtains

She will bless our pure amor

That dissolves in a bittersweet cessation

Though thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe.

O serenader, sermanise thy silent melodies to my sensual ear

O serenader, testify thy words of wisdom to my unstained bosom

Before I slowly recrudesce to my hollow sphere,

Forsaking paradise and all that I hold dear

For my unpleasant epoch lingers still.

But I beseech my sweet to shed no sorrowed tear,

For I will treasure thy timeless whisperings,

As thy eternal ballads are evermore treasured

By thy arduous and ancient seas

And by thy chivalrous and silken breeze,

For thou was not writ in water, but incised in stone.

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