Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/34

xxiv later he was buried in the Protestant cemetery, where upon his gravestone may be read the words which Keats had said of himself:—

In his first sonnet on Fame, Keats, in a saner mood, puts by the temptation which would withdraw him from the high serenity of conscious worth. In the second, wherein he seems almost to be seeing Fanny Brawne mocking behind the figure of Fame, he shows a more scornful attitude. There is little doubt that notwithstanding his close companionship with poets living and dead Keats never could long escape from the allurements of this 'wayward girl,' yet it may surely be said that his escape was most complete when he was fulfilling the highest law of his nature and creating those images of beauty which have given him Fame while he sleeps. Rh