John Keats in Hampstead

John Keats in Hampstead

It was Christmas Eve
with mounds of snow on grayish lanes
and red roofs  of dull Hampstead
hanging still and unmoved in dark English noon.
Sky was fat with clouds,
all set to dart the December flakes
on the sleepy impious town.

Seated in his hearth was John Keats
trying to brood and burst out  verses sweet.
Sick Tom lay nearby , alone, breathing hard
and spurting red cough in thoughtless trance.
The evening draughts sneaked through
the edges of closed windows like death’s harbinger
with  a whistling tone rustling papers and candles.
‘What thinks little John?’ mused
the frail Tom, ‘Was it fear or boredom?
Why is he sober?’
He remembered words once
His mother spoke,
‘John has two lives
 A mundane
social one, and an ideal fecund dream.
He is unfit for filthy earth,
as only heavenly ears can absorb his strains’.
The clock now ticked loud
And John rose like a winter bird
from ebony old
to peer into sticky icicles
of distant bony trees.
 Human life too are icicles on thorny earth.
Fate, like sun would water them soon….