# XXXIII explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by John Keats.

## What happens

Isabel anxiously awaits Lorenzo's return, questioning her brothers with a pale eye about what could be keeping him. The brothers fabricate stories to calm her, but their guilt weighs on them, manifesting in nightmares of Isabel in her shroud.

## Themes in this chapter

### Sorrow and Melancholy

Isabel's sorrow and the brothers' guilt-ridden dreams reflect deep melancholy.

### Love and Loss

Isabel's love for Lorenzo turns to anxiety and foreshadows loss.

## Character check-ins

### Isabel

Anxiously awaits Lorenzo, questioning her brothers with a pale eye.

### Lorenzo

His absence is the cause of Isabel's distress.

## Key lines

> Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes She ask’d her brothers, with an eye all pale, Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes Could keep him off so long?

Since Lorenzo did not return, Isabel frequently questioned her brothers with a pale, strained look, trying to appear normal, asking what dark place could detain him for so long.

_Isabel's growing anxiety and her brothers' deceit are introduced._

> Their crimes Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom’s vale; And every night in dreams they groan’d aloud, To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

The brothers' guilt overwhelmed them like smoke from the valley of Hinnom, and each night they groaned in their dreams at the sight of their sister in her white burial shroud.

_The brothers' guilt manifests in nightmares, foreshadowing Isabel's death._

## Links

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