# LIX explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by John Keats.

## What happens

Isabel's brothers watch for an opportunity to uncover her secret, but she rarely leaves her basil plant, tending to it with devoted care and weeping over it.

## Themes in this chapter

### Sorrow and Melancholy

Isabel's constant weeping and patient mourning over the basil plant embody deep sorrow.

### Love and Loss

Isabel's devotion to the basil plant reflects her enduring love and grief for Lorenzo.

## Character check-ins

### Isabel

Isabel is depicted as devotedly tending to her basil plant, weeping over it and rarely leaving its side.

### Basil

The basil plant is the object of Isabel's obsessive care and mourning.

## Key lines

> Therefore they watch’d a time when they might sift This hidden whim; and long they watch’d in vain; For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, And seldom felt she any hunger-pain: And when she left, she hurried back, as swift As bird on wing to breast its eggs again: And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.

So her brothers waited for a chance to uncover her secret, but they watched for a long time without success. She rarely went to confession or felt hunger, and when she did leave, she rushed back as quickly as a bird returning to its nest. Patiently, like a mother hen, she sat by her basil plant, weeping with her hair falling around her.

_This passage describes Isabel's obsessive mourning and her brothers' frustrated attempts to discover her secret._

## Links

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