For years when I visited Rome, I always wanted to go into the house that sits on the side of the Spanish Steps--the house which was turned into The Keats Shelley House, a museum dedicated to three English poets--all Romantics--who spent time in Italy.
The story goes like this: John Keats, who is best known for his poem Ode to a Nightingale, is dying of tuberculosis when he comes to Rome for the last time in 1820 with a friend. They rent a room in the house, with a window that overlooks the Spanish Steps. He arrives in November when he is still able to ride his horse and see the sights.
As his illness progresses, he's confined to a single room with a magic window.
The house is due to be demolished in 1903, but English and American diplomats and writers save it. The then Kings of England and Italy, the then President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States support the creation of a permanent memorial to Keats. Eventually the memorial includes Keats' contemporaries--Percy Bysshe Shelley (whose wife, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein) and Lord Byron, who is best known for his autobiographical poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage, his many love affairs, his revolutionary spirit which led to his death in Greece and, in my humble opinion, his poem She Walks In Beauty. Byron is as popular as a rock star when he's alive.
Today more than 25,000 people visit the museum.
Theo has no interest in going into the house. Poetry is not his thing. He'll watch a bird video or anything on National Geographic or Animal Planet, but he has no interest in the finer aspects of life.
He sums up his attitude in two simple words: Poetry Smoetry.
This presents a problem because I've been trying to get inside this museum for years. It always seems to be closed. But this time it isn't, and I can't resist. I spent part of my undergraduate work on the English Romantics. To see the house where Keats stayed and died is on my bucket list.
Dan, my hero, comes in with me. There is a nice patio outside the house that overlooks the Spanish Steps.
It is in the shade and the perfect people watching spot. We deposit Theo there, and he's happy. He perches near the railing and after he sniffs around, is instantly mesmerized by the tourists. Yes!
I am in heaven. Now I can explore. There is a welcome message at the entrance:
The walls that line the stairs leading to where Keats stayed are filled with photos and drawings, capturing their life back then. There is a drawing of the square with the Spanish Steps dating back to when Keats was alive:
There is a library filled with every conceivable imaginable book written by or about the three poets. It is an outstanding collection of 8,000 volumes and often attracts scholars who are doing research.
There are excerpts from letters that Keats wrote--to his girlfriend Fanny. To his friends. There are letters from Mary Shelley after her famous poet husband died.
There is so much to see and read. Every once in a while, Dan peeks out to make sure that Theo is still there. With Theo, you never know.
This is how it happens. I am in Keats' room with the magic window, imagining this young man--who is so very talented and yet undiscovered living his last days on earth.
Dan bursts in. "Theo is gone."
How can that be? We race to the patio, open the side door to the outside patio and look around. The patio is enclosed by a railing. There is nowhere to go. Except down.
We lean over and see if it's possible. Could he have jumped down? No, Theo is not stupid. My backpack is still on the chair where I left it.
No Theo.
Other options? Kidnapped? Not likely. He's a gangster cat, after all.
"I know what happened," Dan announces. "Someone opened the door to the patio to look out . . ." He pauses.
"Theo must have run into the museum."
We begin a frantic search to find him. We should have spared ourselves the effort. In the library, on a chair, Theo is cuddled up.
"What the heck?"
And then we see the reason why. A small bowl filled with crocantini (dried cat food) is waiting beside him. A few morsels are left.
There is a young woman, roaming around the museum, who keeps an eye on things. She is majoring in the English Romantics and spending her summer at the museum. We put two and two together and recognize a kind soul who spotted the "starving" Theo.
Unfortunately, although I could have stayed in the Keats and Shelley House forever, it is time to go back to the hotel. The gangster cat has had enough.
As we walk back, I read a few lines from Keats' To Sleep:
Oh, soft embalmer of the still midnight, . . .
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole,
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my Soul.
Theo says, "Poetry. Smoetry."
