'This Living Hand' by John Keats
Herald as 'The greatest accusatory poem'- This Living Hand by John Keats is brilliant!
Enraged by the fact that he will be dead by the time the world reads these lines, he tries to strike an impossible bargain with the reader... To trade places.
But he acknowledges that by reading this poem, thanks to the reader he will live-on forever and having this image in your head forever alive.
He is trying to reach out and make contact.
My favorite aspect of this poem is the fact that the 7th & last line of the poem is cut in half, the way the speaker's life will be cut short; and it ends on the word 'YOU'
The hand tho disconnected from the body, memorializes itself in the poem.
Suggesting he'd like to cheat death by haunting YOU... the reader, in the waking hours and the dreams, devastating you so thoroughly that you will sacrifice yourself by trading places with him. This impossible blackmail is his last desperate gesture.
And here I am, immortalizing him yet again with not only reading his beautiful, heartbreaking plea but using my work to echo his words :)
