Bright Star Page #6

-In 10 days.

-So soon?

Autumn is coming.

I'm afraid if you delay

there'll be less and less reason to hope.

Then there's no putting it off.

I must march against the battery.

Allow me to pour you another, Mr. Severn.

Really? Well, perhaps I might just tip it back.

-Is his passage fully paid for?

-Yes, yes.

Everything's taken care of.

What if something should happen

to Mr. Keats

or even to you, in a foreign country?

How would you survive?

It shouldnt be Severn. He barely knows him.

Where is that fool Mr. Brown

when he is needed?

And why hasn't he written?

I found a goose for Mr. Keats' Last dinner.

Don't say ''Last.''

...two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three. And one, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Toots?

Mr. Keats?

One, two, three...

-She's gone.

-What happened there?

One, two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Very good.

And don't come back.

There's no autumn around here.

Careful.

Are you all right?

Shall we sit down?

Mrs. Brawne, that's for you.

It's beautiful.

My dear, mad boy.

Is it successful?

There were two very positive reviews,

by friends,

and six mainly positive and four hostile.

I don't know, is that successful?

Yes, extremely so.

So they're selling well?

Come back. Live with us.

Marry our Fanny.

I Love you.

We should say our goodbyes now.

Shall we awake

and find all this is a dream?

There must be another Life.

We can't be created

for this kind of suffering.

I doubt that we will see each other again

on this earth.

Then why are you leaving?

Why must you go?

Because my friends have paid my way.

It is a hopeless hope,

but how can I refuse them?

Say you are too ill.

We have woven a web, you and I,

attached to this world

but a separate world of our own invention.

We must cut the threads, Fanny.

No.

No.

I can't.

I never will.

You know I would do anything.

I have a conscience.

-Let's pretend I will return in spring.

-You will return.

We will Live in the country.

Close to Mama.

And our bedroom will Look out

onto a Little apple orchard

and, beyond that, a mountain in a mist.

We can make a garden

where every sort of wildflower grows.

And we will go to bed

while the sun is still high.

And when it becomes dark,

the moon will shine through the shutters.

And I will hold you close

and kiss your breasts,

your arms, your waist.

Everywhere.

Touch has a memory.

I know it.

Not a word.

Mama, Mr. Brown's baby has red hair.

Hello!

You beautiful boy.

Hello. Well done. Well done.

Hello.

It is so nice to meet you.

You've seen the baby?

Looks Like Abigail.

John's reached Naples.

They quarantined his ship.

He wrote that he made more puns

out of desperation in two weeks

than he had in any year of his Life.

I should have Liked to have been there

to have heard them.

You could have, had you gone.

It's not that simple,

with a baby and my funds reduced.

And then there is this issue

of the snow and the Alps.

And lack of will.

Shall I say it aloud?

Will that satisfy you?

Shall I say it?

I have failed John Keats.

I failed John Keats.

I failed John Keats!

I failed him! I failed him!

I did not know until now how tightly

he'd wound himself around my heart.

It's for you, Mama. It's from Italy.

It's from Mr. Keats.

He says, ''It looks Like a dream.''

Start again.

It's cold out.

How are you all?

We're all quite well enough,

but how is Mr. Keats?

Mrs. Brawne, it is as unbearable to me

as I know it is to you.

Mr. Keats has died.

I received an account from Severn,

and I've copied it for you, Miss Brawne.

Shall I just read it?

''Friday, the 23rd of February.

''At four in the afternoon, Keats called me,

'''Severn, Severn, lift me up for I am dying.

'''I shall die easy.

'''Don't be frightened.

Thank God it has come. '

''At one point, a cold, heavy sweat broke out

over his whole body, and he whispered,

'''Don't breathe on me. It comes like ice. '

''Keats died imperceptibly. ''

No more.

Oh, God.

Oh, God. John!

Mama!

Mama!

I... I can't breathe.

Mama!

Mama!

Sammy! Samuel!

''Bright star,

''would I were steadfast as thou art

''Not in Ione splendor hung aloft the night

''And watching, with eternal lids apart

''Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite

''The moving waters at their priestlike task

''Of pure ablution

round earth's human shores

''Or gazing on the new soft fallen masque

''Of snow upon the mountains and the moors

''No, yet still steadfast, still unchangeable

''PiIIow'd upon my fair Loves ripening breast

''To feel for ever its soft swell and fall

''Awake for ever

''in a sweet unrest

''Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath

''And so Live ever, or else swoon to death''

''My heart aches,

and a drowsy numbness pains

''My sense, as though of hemlock

I had drunk

''Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

''One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk

'''Tis not through envy of thy happy lot

But being too happy in thine happiness

''That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

''In some melodious plot

''Of beechen green,

and shadows numberless

''Singest of summer in full-throated ease

''O, for a draft of vintage that hath been

''Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth

''Tasting of Flora and the country green

''Dance, and Provenal song,

and sunburnt mirth!

''O for a beaker full of the warm South

''Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene

''With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

''And purple-stained mouth

''That I might drink,

and leave the world unseen

''And with thee fade away into the forest dim

''Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

''What thou among the leaves

hast never known

''The weariness, the fever, and the fret

''Here, where men sit

and hear each other groan

''Where palsy shakes a few,

sad, last gray hairs

''Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin,

and dies

''Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

''And leaden-eyed despairs

''Where Beauty cannot keep

her lustrous eyes

''Or new Love pine at them

beyond to-morrow

''Away! Away! For I will fly to thee

''Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards

''But on the viewless wings of Poesy

''Though the dull brain perplexes and retards

''Already with thee! Tender is the night

''And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne

''Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays

''But here there is no light

''Save what from heaven

is with the breezes blown

''Through verdurous glooms

and winding mossy ways

''I cannot see what flowers are at my feet

''Nor what soft incense

hangs upon the boughs

''But, in embalmed darkness,

guess each sweet

''Wherewith the seasonable month endows

''The grass, the thicket

and the fruit-tree wild

''White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine

''Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves

''And mid-May's eldest child

''The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine

''The murmurous haunt of flies

on summer eves

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes