Keats's Forgotten Friend

AGAINST OBLIVION--Sheila Blrken-heod--Macmillan ($3).

When the Nazis were driven from Rome three weeks ago, it is probable that few among the liberating forces realized that they had liberated, among other things, the grave of John Keats. The romantic poet is buried in Rome's Protestant Cemetery. Last week, by a timely coincidence, the first full-length account of Joseph Severn, the little known English artist who accompanied Keats to Rome, cared for him loyally during his last days, was published in the U.S.

Against Oblivion is not exactly a fictionized biography, since letters and diaries carefully document it, but it includes a few invented scenes and speeches. The work of Sheila, Countess of Birkenhead (daughter-in-law of Severn's grandson) it is a labor of love in more senses than one. The affection for Keats with which it is suffused, its portrait of the gentle, sturdy, unworldly, innocent and perceptive Severn, its wonderful picture of Severn's happy family life make it a biography as tender and moving as any in recent literature.

Easeful Death. One night in 1820, Keats and Severn sailed for Italy on the 130-ton barque Maria Crowther. Keats was dying.

Severn was a kindly, religious, cheerful man with a spontaneous gift for admiration which, for the moment, focused on Keats. An artist and the one hope of a poor family, Severn gave up much to go with Keats. He had recently, at 25, won the Royal Academy medal. He was at the beginning of a money-making career when he told his father that he was going to take Keats to Italy. The old man knocked him down.

Terrible Pool of Blood. The long sea voyage was a horror. Much of the time it stormed. Once Severn, who was himself ill (he had had typhus and a liver com plaint), came upon Keats during a hemorrhage and stumbled away to the stern of the ship, because the sight of so much suffering was unbearable. "He heard again that ghostly cough ; he saw again the poor white face, the terrible pool of blood." In Rome poet and painter had rooms in the Piazza, di Spagna, before a magnificent flight of steps that led upwards to the twin-towered Church of Santa Trinita de' Monti, overlooking a fountain built in the shape of a ship, and flower stalls packed with daffodils and mimosa. Sometimes Keats walked. Sometimes he puzzled over books in Italian. Sometimes he wrote to Fanny Brawne (the flirtatious girl he loved) or about her. Sometimes he talked about his unfinished work, said he would have become a greater poet than Tasso if he had been allowed to live.

Severn was the only person with Keats when he died. On Feb. 24, 1821, Severn wrote in his diary, which is included in Against Oblivion: "He is gone. He died with the most perfect ease. He seemed to go to sleep. On the 23rd, Friday, at half-past four, the approach of death came on. 'Severn-- I -- lift me up for I am dying. I shall die easy. Don't be frightened! Thank God it has come!'':

After Keats's death Severn slowly lapsed into the somewhat gamy society of Rome's British bohemians. (Even the English expatriates in Rome thought Lady Blessington was going too far when she married her dandiacal French lover to her 15-year-old stepdaughter to keep him at home.)

Severn was not quite spared the barbs of the sophisticates who patronized him, but was confided in, trusted, never helped to great success, never permitted to sink to disaster. Later, when the full quality of Keats's genius began to be known, Severn was recognized as a hero, an authority, and the possessor of Keats's most valuable manuscripts and recollections. One day Severn ran away with the reputedly illegitimate daughter of Lord Montgomerie, married her, lived happily ever after.

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