John Keats's "Isabella: or, the Pot of Basil"

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"Isabella or the Pot of Basil" is one of John Keats's most popular poems. Keats often associates love and pain both in his life and in his poetry, this poem is a great example of both. Here is a brief summary of the poem: The poem tells the tale of a young woman whose family intends to marry her to "some high noble and his olive trees", but the twist beings when she actually falls in love with the servant boy, Lorenzo, who is also one of her brother's workers. The brothers knew that they had met, but wishing to avoid a scandal, they pretended to have seen nothing. Finally they guide Lorenzo to a small area outside of the city, and there murder him. They tell their sister that Lorenzo had been sent on a long journey, but when days, weeks, even months, had passed, she could no longer restrain her uneasiness, and asked when he would return. The brothers tell Isabella nothing of the truth and try to lead her to believe that Lorenzo left on his own and do not know why he has yet to return. Isabella kept her love for so long, is a victim to fears and doubts, but in her solitude she called on her lover, making piteous moan that he would return. And he did, but only when she had fallen asleep, Lorenzo's ghost appeared, pale, blood-drabbled, with garments rent and mouldy, and addressed her: "Isabella, I can never return to you, for on the day we saw each other last your brother’s slew me." (Slew meaning murdered.) Isabella, slightly knowing of where Lorenzo's body lies because of him telling her in her sleep, searches for the grounds where Lorenzo's body lies, and ends up finding Lorenzo, dead just like he had told her. She then cut's his head off the body and buries Lorenzo's head in an old pot full of basil which Isabella tends to obsessively, while mourning the loss of her one true love. One day her brothers return and steal the pot that she had buried Lorenzo's head inside. Leaving Isabella feeling dead inside, sad and so lost with nothing left.