A Bright Star held in This Living Hand: Two Poems, Two Sides of Love

In both "This living hand" and "Bright star", Keats struggles with the isolation that accompanies death and expresses how strongly he wishes to remain among the living. His motivation for doing so is two-fold. "This living hand" compares the warmness of human contact to the cold silence of death. He fears what effect his death would have on the person he speaks to in the poem. "That thou would wish thine own hea[r]t dry of blood / So in my veins red life might stream again," (lines 5,6) The extention of Keats' hand to the listener will placate her worry and, for her sake, he still lives. This focus on the listener's wishes as motivation for Keats to live on stands in stark contrast to his views presented in "Bright Star", where he compells himself to live eternally so that he never feels the pain of separation from his love. If he should fail to be steadfast and cease to feel his head on the chest of his lover, "Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, / Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, / And so live ever - or else swoon to death." (lines 12-14) Here, Keats' motivation for living is his own attachment to his lover. It is not her pain, but his, that he fears should they be separated. In these two short poems, I believe that Keats captures the interesting and complex dual-nature of love. On one hand, lovers selflessly care for the happiness and well-being of each other; on the other hand, a certain amount of selfishness drives a person to preserve his or her own interests. I feel that Keats would have well understood these competing forces because of his situation with Fanny Brawne. He loved her dearly and wanted to be with her, but his financial situation prevented him from marrying. He was selfishly pursuing her, but could not openly express his feelings as this would be inappropriate for the time period. How one so passionate must have struggled with his position...