John Keats (1820–1821)
- Musleh Saadi
- Nov 20
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 6
A Year of Love, Illness, and Farewell
By 1820, John Keats was already weakened by grief, financial strain, and overwork. The death of his younger brother Tom Keats from tuberculosis in December 1818 had left him emotionally shattered. Keats had nursed him day and night — and in the process, he inhaled the same infection that would now begin to destroy his own lungs.
“Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.”
These are the words engraved on John Keats’ tombstone in Rome—his final, heartbreaking verdict on his life. He died in 1821, at the age of just 25, tormented by illness, loss, and the belief that he had failed. Today, he is recognized as one of the finest poets in the English language. But in his lifetime, Keats knew mostly poverty, mockery, and the slow erosion of hope.
He was born on October 31, 1795, in London, the son of a stablekeeper. His early life was marked by tragedy. By the age of 14, he had lost both parents. At a time when many young men of promise were entering university, Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon. He studied medicine seriously and qualified as an apothecary, but his heart wasn’t in it. Poetry had gripped him. He left the security of a profession to pursue a calling that offered no guarantees.
From the start, he was drawn to beauty—not just the pretty or decorative, but beauty as a deep, moral force. In his world, where poverty was real and death was close, beauty wasn’t a luxury. It was resistance. His poetry became a way of holding onto the things that could not be touched by time or loss. But the world around him didn’t always understand that.
His early work met with brutal criticism. The Quarterly Review and Blackwood’s Magazine, powerful tastemakers of the time, ridiculed him. They dismissed him as a “cockney poet,” someone unworthy of the great literary tradition. They mocked his background, his lack of classical education, even his name. It wasn’t simply a rejection of his writing—it was a rejection of him.
Yet he persisted. Between 1818 and 1820, in the space of barely two years, Keats produced the poems that would secure his place in history: Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, and others that shimmer with language, emotion, and thought. These were not the works of a fading man. They were the full flowering of genius. But the world didn’t know it yet. And Keats didn’t live to see it.
All the while, he was struggling with tuberculosis, a disease that had already claimed his mother and brother. He knew the signs. He once coughed up blood and said, “That drop of blood is my death warrant.” He tried to work, to write, but the illness progressed. He was also in love—with Fanny Brawne, a young woman who lived next door. Their relationship was intense and tragic. He couldn’t marry her. He had no money, no health, no future to offer.
In 1820, doctors advised him to travel to Italy in hopes that the warmer climate might slow the disease. He went to Rome, accompanied by a friend, and spent his final months in a small apartment near the Spanish Steps. He was too weak to write. He read no reviews. He asked that his name not appear on his tombstone, only that haunting phrase: “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.”
Keats died on February 23, 1821, believing he had left nothing behind.
But time proved otherwise.
Today, the very poems that were once overlooked are read all over the world. His Ode to a Nightingale captures the ache of mortality and the longing for something eternal. To Autumn remains one of the most perfect meditations on change and beauty in English verse. And the line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know has echoed far beyond its original context.
Keats’ life was short, his trials many. But his poetry endures not because it denies suffering, but because it understands it. He didn’t ask to be remembered as a genius. He only wanted to be heard. And in the end, he was.
From a boy orphaned early, mocked by critics, ravaged by disease—to a voice that still speaks with freshness and clarity across the centuries—Keats reminds us that a life can be brief and still leave behind something lasting.
His name was not writ in water.
It was carved into the heart of literature itself.
Early 1820 — The First Signs of Fatal Illness
In February 1820, Keats returned home after walking in cold rain. That night he coughed violently and saw bright red blood on his handkerchief.
He said quietly to his friend Charles Brown:
“That drop of blood is my death warrant.”
He knew immediately that he had tuberculosis — the same disease that had killed his mother and his brother.
Keats was just 24.
Love and Separation: Fanny Brawne
During this period, Keats was deeply in love with Fanny Brawne, the young woman who lived next door. Their love was intense, but now it became painful:
He could not work due to weakness.
He could not earn enough to marry.
He could not promise her a future.
Yet their love continued — passionate, letter-filled, and heartbreaking.
Keats wrote:
“I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again.”
But, to prevent infecting her, he could not even hold her hand.
They lived next door — but separated by disease, poverty, and fate.
Summer 1820 — Collapse
Keats suffered continuous fever, night sweats, coughing blood, and exhaustion. His doctor advised him to leave the cold English winter and go to Italy, where the warm climate might help his lungs.
September 1820 — The Voyage to Italy
Keats left England on 17 September 1820, accompanied by his loyal friend, Joseph Severn, an artist.
He left behind:
His family
His unfinished poetry
And Fanny, whom he loved more than life
He carried with him only:
A few books
Letters
And a lock of Fanny’s hair
As the ship sailed away, Keats refused to look back at the shore.
He said:
“I feel the flowers of death already blooming in me.”
Rome — The Final Months
Keats and Severn rented a small apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome.
There, Keats grew weaker:
He could not eat solid food
He could barely speak
Pain wracked his chest
He cried out in despair, at times begging for death
Yet Severn cared for him with devotion, refusing to leave his side.
Keats’s poetry had ended — but his love for Fanny had not.
He would ask:
“Has she forgotten me?”
He wore her ring until the day he died.
The End — 23 February 1821
Keats died peacefully at dawn, in Severn’s arms, whispering:
“Don’t be frightened. I feel as if I were going to sleep.”
He was 25 years old.
He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
On his gravestone, by his own wish, there is no name — only the words:
“Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.”
He believed the world would forget him.
But the World Did Not.
Keats is now one of the greatest English poets, remembered not for how long he lived, but how deeply he felt and how beautifully he understood the human soul.
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