CANTO 13
GRAVESEND
”IT WAS A SEASON OF TWIGS…”
We venture down river toward the Thames Estuary at dusk…
NOTES:
“MARLOWE, KNIFED AT MILLWALL…”
Marlowe, Christopher /ˈmɑːləʊ / (1564–93), English playwright and poet. As a playwright he brought a new vitality to blank verse influencing Shakespeare’s early historical plays. Differing sensational reports of Marlowe’s death in 1593 abound.
Millwall /ˈmɪlwɔːl / an English football team from South London whose supporters have often been associated with hooliganism. Renowned for their terrace chant “No one likes us, we don’t care.”
“SWEET JOHN KEATS COUGHS A CONSUMPTIVE RED PETAL”
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet. When tuberculosis (or consumption as it was then known) took hold he was advised by his doctors to move to a warmer climate. In September 1820 Keats left London for Italy. The journey was beset by problems, storms, dead calms and quarantine when they finally docked in Naples. Keats reached Rome on 14 November by which time any hope of the warmer climate he sought had disappeared. He died there three months later at the age of just 25. His medical training meant that he had recognised the severity of his condition. On first coughing up blood he had told a friend, “I know the colour of that blood! It is arterial blood. That drop of blood is my death warrant.”
BODY 115 