Nazia Sultan Poet Elegy

The Cenotaph of Ink

Poem Notes:
A poem of mourning written to honor Keats, 200 years after his letters. It blends grief, love, and history with elevated language

Header Note:

Contest Name: 1488 Poetry Contest  
Sponsor Name: Brian Strand  
Date of Submission :July 14,2026


The Cenotaph of Ink

In the pallid hush of mid-Autumn,  
when fog descended like a shroud upon the window  
and rain traced its elegy against the glass,  
Keats wrote at midnight by the dim oil lamp.  

Next door, Fanny lay in slumber,  
her soul unilluminated.  
A brick wall between their houses,  
an ocean between their lives.  

With iron gall ink that endured for two centuries  
upon laid cotton paper,  
he set down the words that would outlive empires:  
"Love is my religion — I could die for that."

Two hundred years hence, I unseal the letter,  
and my heart splinters to the very marrow.  
My countenance dissolves into an ocean  
as I read the line: _"I have nothing else to think but you."_  

And I hear him, across the abyss of time,  
as though he smiled and said:  
_"My pen was weaker than my fever, but stronger than death."_  

I regard my desk —  
a pen filled with ink,  
gampi paper spread upon the wood.  
All of it seems profane  
before a love that has defied oblivion.  
Thus I shattered my pen  
to chronicle his story.  

He departed London.  
He perished ere he could behold her once more.  
He wrote in love, in grief, in anguish, and in desolation.  
Yet the letters remain.  

The fog is still on the window.  
The lamp is still burning at midnight.  
And 200 years later,  
his letter still echoes:  
*LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH*

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