For the 200th anniversary of John Keats' death, I've unearthed a long-lost poem (of mine, not his) I committed way back when & prompted a little essay about the day I wrote it & more since then. I'll reprint the poem below, but if you want to know the story behind its writing in 1972, and about Keats' and my relationship, you can get the full package over at Medium. Use this friends link, and you'll get have access to it even if you don't subscribe to Medium.
ACROSS HAMPSTEAD HEATH
He measured the room with a fury of pacing;
It shrunk, more confining, with each angry stride.
His eyes at the window through dim glass were tracing
The flight of a swallow, its leisurely glide.
But he felt no leisure; he was bound to his writing,
And each unfinished line made his solitude worse.
His muse was his torture, each thought fled him fighting
Against being committed to the prison of verse.
Just to be one with nature, footsteps drowning his cry
But the swallow had hidden, in some corner of sky.
Darkened clouds passed him quickly; the words came and went,
He failed to grasp them with his weakening eye,
And could not now write them; his pen gone bone dry.
Words flown away wasted; the energy spent.
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