The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Fragment on Keats

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

FRAGMENT^[1] ON KEATS

WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED—

'Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.
 But, ere the breath that could erase it blew,
Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,
 Death, the immortalizing winter, flew
 Athwart the stream,—and time's printless torrent grew 5
A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name
 Of Adonais!

 

1. Published by Mrs. Shelley, P.  W., 1839, 1st ed.—Ed.