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What better way to celebrate the weekend of Hallowe'en, All Saints' and All Souls' than to pay a visit to the Cimitero Acattolico per gli Stranieri, otherwise known as the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. For cheerful pictures of famous graves, follow the link.
That's Keats to the left, with the tulips in front. You probably already know what the grave marker says:
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
Keats wanted only those last two lines. It was his friends Joseph Severn (grave to the right) and Charles Brown who had the full-on text placed on the stone. Severn's son's tiny grave is between the two.
Here is Shelley's. In good Romantic fashion, the story of the burial is quite strange, involving PBS's ashes being placed for temporary holding in the British Consul's wine cellar until the body of their son William could be retrieved and buried next to his father. The Shelleys' friends got permission to disinter the son's body, but then found a skeleton much too large to be that of William, though it did seem to be under his gravestone. From a letter by Severn: "To search further we dare not, for it was in the presence of many respectful but wondering Italians: nay, I thought it would have been a doubtful and horrible thing to disturb any more Stranger's Graves in a Foreign Land. So we proceeded very respectfully to deposit poor Shelley's ashes alone."
And last not least:
Let us most devoutly hope that, come tomorrow, we are not sad like this angel.
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