Contemplating the Grecian Urn

Lovely urn, your Grecian scene
Still lingers through long years:
Garlanded cow and laughing youths
Piping in the sun. But under the glaze
Lie unseen cracks, and fault lines filled with tears
Admirers see no farther than vines and flutes,
Your maiden painted fair, whose bland gaze
Never exposed those fractures,
Or parsed out what they mean.

9/14/08 and 10/12/08

This poem is partly inspired by a conversation I had many years ago with a young woman I knew only a bit at college. And it partly keys off the wonderful Keats poem.
Link here to read Keats' great poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, at Bartleby.com.