The Spanish Steps and English Romantic Poets

The Spanish Steps are iconic.  They show up in TV shows and movies all the time, everything from Roman Holiday to Everybody Loves Raymond.  They were built in the early 18th century, as a convenient way for the Spanish and French officials at the top of the hill to get to the church at the bottom of the hill.  If you go to this website, you can see an interactive panorama of the Piazza, including the "Ugly Boat" fountain at the bottom, and including a little of the history of the Steps.  You can see that it is quite crowded with tourists although, apparently, it is illegal to eat your lunch while sitting on the steps, probably as a way to minimize congestion.

This is a very old picture of the Spanish Steps.

From the edge of the Piazza.  The cream colored house in the middle is now the Keats-Shelley Museum, named after two English romantic poets.  John Keats used to live in the house.  I have added his poem on December, below, since it seems to fit.  It is like History and English are coming together!

This picture, taken from the top of the Steps, at night, really makes me wish I had actually gone to see the Steps.

John Keat's 

In Drear Nighted December

In drear nighted December, 

   Too happy, happy tree, 

Thy branches ne'er remember 

   Their green felicity—

The north cannot undo them 

With a sleety whistle through them 

Nor frozen thawings glue them 

   From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December, 

   Too happy, happy brook, 

Thy bubblings ne'er remember 

   Apollo's summer look; 

But with a sweet forgetting, 

They stay their crystal fretting, 

Never, never petting 

   About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many 

   A gentle girl and boy—

But were there ever any 

   Writh'd not of passed joy? 

The feel of not to feel it, 

When there is none to heal it 

Nor numbed sense to steel it, 

   Was never said in rhyme.

I admit that I have never been good at literature analysis, but I don't think that he was as excited about winter time as I am.

(All of the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons, since I never actually got there).