Sixteen words for a poet

In the gloaming, near the shores of a night
parting waters whisper

Let my sleep draw closer, like a little child,
tighten its arms around me

Let her turn up in the guise of a young maiden,
adorned with a deceptive smile

Let the closing chapter be read out slow,
in a gentle baritone

Let the echoes of the endmost syllable
blend with fresh silence of woods

O Angel, spend just sixteen words for me,
as you did with Keats, the morn following his last



[Sixteen words, published in The Times on March 23, 1820, marked the end of an extraordinary life. It said :

“At Rome, on the 23rd of Feb, of a decline, John Keats, the poet, aged 25.” ]



(c)Arunansu Banerjee 2009