Try and Catch the Wind

If you’re going to look at pictures of the dead or dying you must as well look at beautiful ones: This sketch of the poet John Keats was done by one Joseph Severin as he sat up with his sick friend a month before his death in February of 1821.It was a hard death to watch by the sound of it: "The phlegm seemed boiling in his throat, and increased until 11:00, when he gradually sunk into death."Severin said he couldn’t write more, "broken down as [he was] from four nights' staying awake with the dying man  and no sleep since." However he did rally enough to write that three days earlier the body had been 'opened': “The lungs were completely gone. The Doctors could not conceive by what means he had lived these two months. “I followed his poor body to the grave on Monday,” he added and ended by saying that "a mask has been done."A mask was indeed done and that is what you see above. The way you make one is seen below. (This person seeming to sit is actually dead.)It might seem grim to us moderns but what other way did people have then to remember the way a person looked? I study this photo a while, then quickly look up again at the result. Then I banish all thoughts of a young man dead at 26  and instead turn to the words he wrote which of course live on and on:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:Its loveliness increases; it will neverPass into nothingness; but still will keepA bower quiet for us, and a sleepFull of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Because it's like what Bob Dylan said : you can't capture a person's spirit by making a cast of his head anymore than you can tie down that ragged young wind that's blowing even now in all our trees.

And now let's hear 'Try and Catch the Wind,' as performed by Donovan long and long ago:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjIqVL7G-CI]