Epipsychidion
The sun came up blank, an indifferent god, and threw laughing light on the water. The Shelleys’ palazzo seemed defeated by it. The bricks squatted around the doors and confessed their failure to be more than dumb stone. Keats followed the footman’s coat up the stairs, revolving dark thoughts: what a bother was a stairway, how many hours of life one spent climbing it, how soon that labor would be lost if one chose to topple out the window. He had come to a house of mourning. Vaccà had turned very quiet after giving the news from Naples, and Leopoldo as well; it was Giuditta who had paced the hall, spitting curses at Metternich. Keats was surprised that she knew who Metternich was. Watching them grieve for their nation, he had felt his presence to be an imposition and had reti
