British Poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne

Bright Star

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More behind the scenes and set design here

Gold framed sketch above here

To Fanny Brawne

from John Keats

I cry your mercy -pity -love! -aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen -without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole, -all -all -be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss, -those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast, –
Yourself -your soul -in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,
Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes, -the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Chemisette

early 19th century

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Spencer jacket

c. 1820

Augusta Auction Oct ’07

Copy of an original letter from John Keats

to Fanny Brawne

c. May 1820

John Keats by Joseph Severn

c. 1819 oil on ivory

Joseph traveled to Rome with Keats, and was with him

when he died there on Febuary 26, 1821

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Bright Star

Bright star, would I were stedfast 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 stedfast, 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.

A meadow in The Gardens of Russel Page

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I’m not sure whether I’m more excited about the carpets of

Spanish blue bells, gorgeous Regency costumes, or the

lovely tones of dark grays, blues and indigo, interjected

by old rosy reds and aquas…

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Additional information about the poet and film here