Keats-Shelley 200: An Evening of Music & Verse to celebrate P.B. and Mary Shelley

In July 2022, as part of Keats-Shelley 200, trustees from the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association were joined for an enchanting evening celebrating the legacy of the Shelleys. Music was provided by the Sacco Trio and critically-acclaimed composer and harpist, Harriet Adie, which was interspersed with poetry readings by Keats-Shelly 200 Ambassador & BBC Presenter, Reeta Chakrabarti. This was followed by a short talk by Paul Hamilton, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London, who provided an insight into the association between the Shelleys and St Pancras Old Church, London.

[@basittalii]

I wrote this poem on John Keats some 15 years ago. I have quit poety, but I want to present this poem to Keats-Shelley Memorial House. (Sorry if my way is quite untoward)
Ode to John Keats
More than twenty years have passed since then,
And most I used to see those days, have changed;
I can not hear and talk to most of men
I used to talk from here and there wide ranged.
Where have they gone from me? Of course, they have
Gone to some city, state or foreign land,
And settled down to never come here back,
Or lain in some cold grave,
Or taken rest some where imprisoned, and
No notes to hear and read from them, Alack.
Yet there is something constant in my mind,
Some thoughts and dreams and visions of those days,
When I go through your poems, I feel and find
Those youthful years of life lie there always.
The memories of your Odes are fresh and green!
How great I loved to read them late at nights!
And dreamed to write one like them from my own,
That no one could have seen,
By bard who lived with different tongue and sights,
And who more than you two cent years had grown.
I do have themes to write on as you did,
But lack the force you put them down in Odes
With, the force I may have found in mid
Of fake and genuine springs, of muses' abodes.
Why I don’t feel to write immortal themes,
As you did: Nightingale and Grecian Urn,
And Autumn, all times favourite on my part?
Quite obviously the schemes
Of things have changed, and written word in turn
Has lost its worth, especially in Art.
-------
Havi Shah