Tonight I read this occasional poem which John Keats wrote on the 17th birthday of his brother, Tom.
To My Brothers
Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o’er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fix’d, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.
Many such eves of gently whisp’ring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world’s true joys,—ere the great voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.
November 18, 1816
I find the initial quatrain particularly compelling, the beautiful imagery. I am there. I can see and hear the coals crackling. And then, as the sonnet turns on the 9th line, and Keats addresses his brother, Tom—it touches me with such a sense of tenderness and delicacy and hopefulness.
Tom would be dead from tuberculosis in just two years and 13 days. John Keats had a little more than 4 years left.
Many such eves of gently whisp’ring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world’s true joys,—ere the great voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.