Fanny Brawne

 

 

Bright Star

Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-
No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

            -- John Keats (1795 – 1821)

 

Although she married twelve years after Keats died, Fanny Brawne wore the engagement ring he gave her until her death.

 

Almandine

Since Louis hasn’t asked, I have
not told. I am discreet —
I clean it only when alone,
rubbing the boxy beet

red stone into a dark mirror.
Some law prohibits this:
on the left hand, a wedding band;
the right’s ring a promise

unfulfilled. Married, I am still
engaged. I did not choose.
Or that is not a ring there, but
the past’s persisting bruise.

  -- Carrie Etter