On Final Words.

An additional essay about a trip to a cemetery.

Over a week ago my brother and I visited the grave of Keats in the Non-Catholic Cemetery on the border of Testaccio. It’s a peaceful place, with a hoard of famous residents, but it is the grave of the young English poet that most people make a pilgrimage to. Oscar Wilde dubbed it “the holiest place in Rome”, lying prostrate on it when he visited as a young man. I doubt this is true, but it’s a nice sentiment to a great writer.

Keats’s epitaph is brilliantly dramatic:

This Grave contains all the was Mortal of a Young English Poet, who, on his Death Bed, in the bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his Enemies, Desired these Words to be engraved on his tomb stone

“Here lies One Whose name was writ in Water.

Feb 24th 1821

In other words it is Olde English for, “this ones for my haters!”.

He died young – 25 - of Tuberculosis; in an apartment that bordered Piazza di Spagna. He spent close to three years bedridden, listening to the trickling Fountain of Neptune beyond his window (perhaps a connection to the final line on his tombstone), and Roman life unfolding and continuing without him. At the time of contracting the illness he had also, tragically, recently fallen in love with a woman named Fanny Brawne. One of my favourite lines comes from a letter he wrote her, which reads:

I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder’d at it — I shudder no more. I could be martyr’d for my Religion — Love is my religion — I could die for that — I could die for you.

I wandered to a nearby bakery on Sunday (that was exceptionally good, and worth visiting), passing by the graveyard once more. Except this time I noticed that across from it is another cemetery, for the fallen soldiers of World War II. Lines and lines of ivory tombstones flank one another in perfect symmetry. The gates were open, but no one was inside. There was no famous poet in there to visit, I suppose, just sons and brothers and husbands and fathers who might one day be totally forgotten.

Are gravestones important if they will one day be neglected? I’ve been thinking about it a lot. There are no words anywhere marking the life of my mother, and I increasingly think this is a shame. Maybe we need them, to bear testament to a life lived.

There is a plaque on a bench in the Ladies Pond in Hampstead Heath, which reads:

For Wyn Cornwell who swam here for over 50 years, and Vic Cornwell, who waited for her.

Every time I visit, I make sure to read these words. A pilgrimage of my own.
Words, even when carved onto a bench, are important.

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Next week Wednesday will be my final Dispatch from Italy, and then who knows what lies beyond for me & this newsletter. Thank you for reading and supporting thus far.

Anna