# LII explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by John Keats.

## What happens

Isabel wraps her lover's basil plant in a silken scarf, perfumed with exotic flowers and divine liquids, and places it in a garden-pot covered with mould, watering it with her tears.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Loss

Isabel's mourning is expressed through her careful and tearful tending of the basil plant.

### Sorrow and Melancholy

The act of watering the basil with tears underscores the pervasive sorrow of the chapter.

## Character check-ins

### Isabel

Tends to the basil plant with devotion, using a silken scarf and her tears.

### Basil

The plant is placed in a garden-pot as a tomb for her lover.

## Key lines

> Then in a silken scarf,⁠—sweet with the dews Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby, And divine liquids come with odorous ooze Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,⁠— She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by, And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.

She wrapped the basil in a luxurious scarf perfumed with Arabian flowers and fragrant liquids, then placed it in a pot as a grave, covering it with soil and watering it constantly with her tears.

_Isabel's ritualistic burial of the basil plant symbolizes her enduring grief and love._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_14_se/chapters/lii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_14_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_14_se/chapters