In the Midst

Contemplation on John Keats, and what I thought I read...

“Oh what can ail thee, knight at arms/ Alone and palely loitering”, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, (1820)


Today, while reading & studying this that Keats’s wrote, “And in the midst of this wide quietness” gave me pause, and I took time to contemplate, and suddenly I realized I had read it wrong:

“In the midst of this wild quietness”
This is what I read,
Although this is not actually what Keats said
Admittedly
Mine eyes deceived me

Preferring what was thought read
Persevering
On this quest instead
The truth now being harder to discern
Like Shakespeare’s art and Galileo’s telescope

The mind hungers to go back to bed
Wherein to bury its weary head
Seeking kind solace
From the fear of visual manipulation
Since dinosaurs can roam once more,
And the dead are morphed back to life
With the advent of such new technology

Woe and worry
As this day’s particular pursuit
Can make one as crazy as Hamlet,
Or as creative as Galileo

Then verses now
No longer seems so long ago
As I seek understanding of
“Alone and palely loitering”