Wednesday, 7 October 2009

Cayenne (Keats, February-March 1819)


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File:Large Cayenne.jpg


I drank claret without restraint for six weeks
I coated my throat with pepper in order to enjoy
The claret better. My funds grew low. I felt idle, my throat
Continued to hurt. I ended my relations with Isabella

Jones. If I have ever met a woman whom I really
Think would like to be married to a poem
And would like to be given away by a novel: Isabella Jones,
Of whom I have had no libidinous thought

Until provoked by her, when we drank whiskey
In her rooms, and had a curious feast.
She gave me a pheasant to take away, but to this day
I don't know who caught whom; nor what the game was.






File:Pheasant Fowling Showing how to catch Pheasants Fac simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the Livre du Roy Modus Fourteenth Century.png







 A large Cayenne: photo by André Karwath, 2004
Pheasant Fowling: "Showing how to catch Pheasants": from the Livre du Roy Modus, 14th c.

from TC: Junkets on a Sad Planet: Scenes from the Life of John Keats
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2 comments:

  1. u.v.ray.7 October 2009 at 06:15

    "My funds grew low. I felt idle, my throat Continued to hurt."

    Dunno about you, Tom. But I know the feeling well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. human being7 October 2009 at 07:09

    " but to this day
    I don't know who caught whom; nor what the game was."


    WOW! WOW!
    what and ending!

    ReplyDelete