Shelley met his friend, and after a week spent with him and with Lord Byron, he set out for home.  The little boat never reached its port, for on the journey it was wrecked, we shall never know how.  A few days later Shelley’s body was thrown by the waves upon the sandy shore.  In his pocket was found a copy of Keats’s poems doubled back, as if he had been reading to the last moment and hastily thrust the book into his pocket.  The body was cremated upon the shore, and the ashes were buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, not far from the grave of Keats.  “It is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies.  It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.”  So Shelley himself had written in the preface to Adonais.

Over his grave was placed a simple stone with the date of his birth and death and the words “Cor Cordium”—­heart of hearts.  Beneath these words are some lines from the Tempest which Shelley had loved—­

    “Nothing of him doth fade
    But doth suffer a sea-change
    Into something rich and strange.”

BOOKS TO READ

Poems of Shelley, selected and arranged for use in schools, by E. E. Speight.

Chapter LXXXI KEATS—­THE POET OF BEAUTY

JOHN KEATS, the poet whose death Shelley mourned in Adonais, was by a few years the younger, having been born in 1795.  He was born, too, in very different circumstances, for whereas Shelley was the eldest son of a country gentleman, John Keats, was the eldest son of a stableman.

As a boy Thomas Keats had come to London and found a situation as ostler in some livery stable.  He was clever and steady, and before he was twenty had risen to be head ostler and married his master’s daughter.  Keats then became manager of the stables, and his father-in-law, who was comfortably off, went away to live in the country.  John’s parents were not poor, nor were they common people.  In all they had four children, two boys besides John, and a little girl, and they determined to give their children a good education.  They would have liked to send their boys to Harrow, but finding that would cost too much they sent them to a smaller school at Enfield.  It was a good school, with a large playground, and John seems to have had a happy time there.  He was a little chap for his years, but a manly little fellow, broad shouldered and strong.  He was full of spirits and fond of fun, and in spite of his passionate temper, every one liked him.  He was not particularly fond of lessons, but he did them easily and then turned to other things.  What he liked best was fighting.  “He would fight any one,” says one of his old schoolfellows,* “Morning, noon, and night, his brothers among the rest.  It was meat and drink to him.”  “Yet,” says another, “no one ever