Roman Waters, by Robert Royal

The English poet John Keats spent the last years of his short life in Rome, wrote most of the handful of great poems that have made him famous in the Eternal City, died – and is buried – there. His tombstone in the Protestant Cemetery (in Italian, wonderfully called the Cimitero Acattolico, i.e. “A-Catholic” = Non-Catholic Cemetery) bears the inscription “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

An admirer of the poetry – which at its best is quite worth remembering (it’s October and “To Autumn” is a good read) – might like to think that the line is not just a whiny, last Romantic poet’s blast at unnamed “enemies,” who are also mentioned on the tombstone. Other meanings than the poet intended might also be quite possible. In any event, the significance of that line goes far beyond Keats because all of our names are written in water – unless they’re written in the Book of Life. ….

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