This Living Hand Summary & Analysis
by John Keats

Question about this poem?
Have a question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Ask us
Ask us
Ask a question
Ask a question
Ask a question

The Full Text of “This living hand, now warm and capable”

1This living hand, now warm and capable

2Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

3And in the icy silence of the tomb,

4So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

5That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood

6So in my veins red life might stream again,

7And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–

8I hold it towards you.

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Introduction

    • "This living hand, now warm and capable" is an untitled fragment composed by John Keats (1795-1821) as he was dying of tuberculosis. Written in December 1819, in the margin of another poem he was working on, it imagines the end of its speaker's life and the grief that an unnamed "you" will feel afterward. Haunted by the specter of their own mortality, and warning that their death will haunt the listener or reader, the speaker "hold[s]" out their "living hand" in a mysterious gesture of attempted connection. Overall, it's a combination of a carpe diem poem, a memento mori poem, and (in some readings) a desperate love poem.

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Summary

    • My hand is still alive and able to clasp things warmly. But if it were cold and dead in the quiet of the grave, the thought of it would plague your daydreams and nightmares—so relentlessly that you'd wish to lose your own life in order to revive mine and to set your conscience at ease. Look, here's my hand: I'm stretching it out to you.

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Themes

    • Theme Death and Mourning

      Death and Mourning

      "This living hand, now warm and capable" was among the last poems John Keats wrote while terminally ill with tuberculosis. Addressing an unnamed "you," the speaker ominously warns that if their currently "living hand" were dead and buried, it would "haunt" you so badly that you'd wish to change places with the dead (i.e., to die yourself so that the speaker might live again). The speaker then extends their hand "towards you," desperately seeking warmth and attachment before it's too late. The poem thus depicts death as chilling and grief as agonizing. It can be read as asking the listener to value the speaker's life—and perhaps, by extension, life in general—before it's gone.

      The speaker's warning that "you" will be haunted by their memory after they die isn't so much a cruel threat as a reminder that death is inevitable and the listener won't be able to forget the speaker easily (i.e., the haunting is metaphorical). More specifically, the speaker tells "you" (or "thou") that if their "living hand" were "cold" and in "the tomb," the idea of it would "haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights." Their memory would become an obsession, an inescapable source of fear and remorse. These feelings would intensify to the point where "you" would want to give your own life to restore theirs.

      Through its frightening prophecy, the poem conveys both the pain of losing a loved one and the speaker’s preemptive fear and anger over their own death. The speaker all but boasts about how much "you" will miss them, while, at the same time, communicating their terror of death's "icy silence." The poem, therefore, seems to insist on human connection before the speaker dies.

      The speaker "hold[s]" their still-living hand "towards you," the listener or reader, and stresses that it's still "capable / Of earnest grasping." In other words, it's not cold in the tomb yet. Implicitly, the speaker invites "you" to take that hand and make that human connection, so that "conscience[]"—meaning one's moral sense or one's thoughts in general—doesn't plague you later. The speaker's complex phrasing makes the final line, "I hold it towards you," seem to refer both to the living and the dead hand, though it technically refers only to the first. Even the poem's grammar, then, makes the speaker seem halfway in the tomb already, underscoring the urgency of bonding with the speaker now.

      Overall, then, the poem can be read as a call to embrace the "warm[th]" and vitality of life before it disappears into "the icy silence of the tomb."

    • Theme Love, Fidelity, and Guilt

      Love, Fidelity, and Guilt

      "This living hand, now warm and capable" is sometimes read as a desperate outreach from one lover to another. (Specifically, it's sometimes read as addressing Fanny Brawne, the woman whom Keats loved and to whom he became engaged, but felt unable to marry due to his failing health. However, it might have been a fragment of a longer play or poem instead.) The speaker warns that their death would haunt the "conscience[]" of the poem's "you," perhaps because "you" had not been affectionate, committed, and/or faithful enough during their life. (The reasons for this potential crisis of conscience ultimately remain unclear.) The speaker seems to seek a physical connection—the joining of hands—as the sign of an "earnest" emotional bond. In this way, the speaker may be imploring a lover (or lovers in general) to show affection and commitment now in order to avoid guilt later. Seize the day, the poem seems to urge, by seizing the hand of someone you love.

      The speaker doesn't say why their death would unsettle the "conscience[]" of the addressee, but the reason might involve some form of failed intimacy. Holding hands is associated with intimacy in general and romance in particular, so in reaching out their "living hand," the speaker may be yearning for a romantic or otherwise passionate connection. Metaphorically, the speaker seems to crave the kind of "earnest grasping" they're still "capable" of—in other words, a true, deep bond rather than a superficial relationship. The speaker implies that, by denying them this, "you" would ensure your own guilt after they're gone. Eventually, you'd be willing to trade your life for theirs in order to "calm[]" your own "conscience[]." Again, these claims hint that the speaker is seeking an intense, passionate connection.

      Read in a romantic light, then, the poem is a plea for fidelity and commitment, as well as for living life to the utmost. Its message may boil down to "love me now or I'll haunt you later." But if so, the speaker is really begging, not threatening, since the dead can't actually "haunt" in a supernatural sense. The speaker pleads not to be taken for granted and suggests that their death will be more painful for loved ones who ignore this plea. In holding their hand "towards you," they ask "you" to embrace them while both they and you are still capable of embracing. After all, someday "thine own heart" really will be "dry of blood," just as the speaker's will be. In this way, Keats's fragment takes up one of the oldest themes in poetry: carpe diem. We're mortal, it seems to say, so let's love while we can.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “This living hand, now warm and capable”

    • Lines 1-3

      This living hand, now warm and capable
      Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
      And in the icy silence of the tomb,

      The poem (or poem-fragment) begins with a strong central image: "This living hand." The speaker, or the poet, is pointing to a part of their own body—perhaps the very hand they're using to write the poem.

      They stress that it's a "living" hand: a curious detail, which may cause the reader to wonder why it's necessary. Why does this speaker feel the need to stress that they're not dead? The pause, or caesura, that follows these first three words adds a touch of extra emphasis, causing the image to linger for a moment.

      The speaker then adds that their hand is "warm and capable." This phrase restates the idea that the hand is alive; it's "warm" with blood, and it can do the things hands normally do. (The enjambment after "capable" highlights this word, and therefore highlights the hand's lack of dysfunction or disability.) The hand is capable, for example, of "earnest grasping"—a phrase that suggests the firm, sincere clasping of another person's hand. It's worth noting, too, that while Keats wrote these lines, the thing he was "grasping" was a pen. This speaker is eager to stress that they are very much alive—able to bond with others, love, write, etc.

      But then there's a shift in mood. In lines 2-3, the speaker begins to imagine what the hand "would" do if it weren't alive—"if it were cold / And in the icy silence of the tomb." The initial description of the hand, then, has set up an antithesis:

      • Alive, the speaker's hand is warm and able to connect with others, whether through direct touch or writing.
      • If dead, however, it would be cold and unable to communicate—stuck in "the icy silence" of the grave.

      The speaker is imagining what would happen after their own death, and needless to say, it's not a pleasant thought. (Keats wrote the poem while he was ill with tuberculosis, a disease that would kill him just over a year later, so many readers have assumed the poem was inspired by his own condition—though critics are divided on this point.)

      The poem unfolds in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter. (That is, the lines tend contain five iambs, poetic feet with a da-DUM rhythm.) This is a highly traditional form in English poetry, and it's especially prevalent in English verse drama (like Shakespeare's plays). Some critics speculate that Keats meant to put the poem in a verse play of his own. Whether or not that's true, the poem is intensely dramatic, and blank verse—which is thought to closely mimic the natural speech rhythms of English—is a natural, flexible medium for that drama.

    • Lines 4-7

      So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
      That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
      So in my veins red life might stream again,
      And thou be conscience-calm’d–

      LitCharts Logo

      Unlock all 428 words of this analysis of Lines 4-7 of “This living hand, now warm and capable,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.

      Plus so much more...

    • Lines 7-8

      see here it is–
      I hold it towards you.

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Symbols

    • Symbol Hands

      Hands

      Hands have many symbolic associations. They are often used to represent dexterity and capability in general (think of "handiness," for example), and the touching or holding of hands is a universal symbol for love and human connection. Authors often use the "warm[th]" or "cold[ness]" of hands to indicate a character's emotional vitality or chilliness, or their state of life vs. death. All these associations come into play here: the speaker "hold[s]" out their "hand" to show that they are still "living" and "capable," and also as a way of connecting with the reader or listener.

      Since most authors write with their hands, the writing hand can also be a synecdoche for the author as a whole. Keats may be using it that way here—as he also does in his abandoned epic poem The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, in the line "When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave." (A "scribe" is another word for a writer.)

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Apostrophe

      The poem is delivered as a seeming apostrophe to an unnamed "you." It's unclear whether this "you" is supposed to be the reader or some other person. If it's the former, the poem imagines the reader not as a generic blob but as an individual—someone whose "conscience[]" would be "haunt[ed]" by the speaker's death, and to whom the speaker is now outstretching their hand.

      Since apostrophe is supposed to address an absent person or entity, one could object that this scenario doesn't qualify. Isn't the speaker addressing someone who's present and could literally take their hand? Maybe—but, again, maybe not! Some scholars believe Keats intended "This living hand" to be a speech in a play. In that case, the speaker might simply be addressing someone onstage, rather than apostrophizing someone absent. But Keats never wrote any such play or provided any other context, so it's also possible that these lines are a complete poem, apostrophizing an absent listener or reader.

      Regardless, the outreach to "you" makes the speaker's warning—or plea—especially urgent and direct. It implicates the reader/listener, emotionally and morally, as if the poet were saying: "Hey! You! Stop what you're doing and appreciate me while I'm still alive! You'll regret it if you don't!" At the same time, the poem isn't just a guilt trip; it's trying to forge a meaningful bond as well. In the end, it's as though the speaker is literally trying to reach through the lines and connect with "you."

    • Antithesis

      LitCharts Logo

      Unlock all 330 words of this analysis of Antithesis in “This living hand, now warm and capable,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.

      Plus so much more...

    • Alliteration

    • Caesura

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Earnest
    • Thou/thy/thine
    • Conscience-calm'd
    Earnest
    • Sincere; genuine; heartfelt. ("Earnest grasping" here suggests something like a warm, firm handshake or the heartfelt clasping of a lover's hand.)

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “This living hand, now warm and capable”

    • Form

      The poem contains eight lines—one octave stanza—of unrhymed iambic pentameter (a.k.a. blank verse). The meter is fairly regular throughout, but there's one irregularity in the last line: it's shorter than the others. It breaks off in the middle, increasing the abruptness and urgency of the speaker's closing gesture—and perhaps evoking the abrupt closure of death itself. (The line also breaks on the word "you," making the ending feel especially immediate for the reader, as if the poet/speaker has completed the human connection they long for.)

      It's not known whether "This living hand" represents a fragmentary draft or a finished poem. Some critics believe Keats intended it to form part of a longer poem—or even a speech within a verse drama. (English verse dramas, such as Shakespeare's, have traditionally used blank verse, so critics who support the drama theory point to Keats's use of that form here.) However, no one knows for sure, and even if these eight lines are an abandoned fragment, they have a remarkable power and coherency all their own.

    • Meter

      The poem is written in iambic pentameter (which, when unrhymed, is also called blank verse). This means that its lines generally contain ten syllables arranged in a five-beat, da-DUM, da-DUM rhythm. Readers can hear this rhythm clearly in line 3, for instance:

      And in | the i- | cy si- | lence of | the tomb,

      Like most metrical poems, this one varies the rhythm occasionally for emphasis or expressive effect. Listen to line 7, for example:

      And thou | be con- | science-calm'd— | see here | it is

      The fourth foot (metrical unit) of this line is a spondee (DUM-DUM) rather than an iamb (da-DUM). In other words, both syllables in "see here" carry about equal weight. The metrical variation, coming right after a caesura, adds strong emphasis to the word "see" in particular. These effects make the speaker's gesture—extending their hand and urging the listener to look at it—all the more abrupt and dramatic.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      The poem has no rhyme scheme; it's written in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter.

      Keats was a master of rhyme and used it in many of his most famous poems. Here, however, the lack of an elaborate musical structure gives the lines greater immediacy and urgency—in keeping with the desperate passion and foreboding they express. It's as though, in its drive to connect with the reader or listener, the poem drops the formality of rhyme as something that might only get in the way.

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Speaker

    • The reader never learns the name, age, gender, etc. of the speaker—or of the "you" they're addressing, for that matter. The speaker's main characteristic is a keen awareness of their own mortality, which includes a desire to make "you" just as aware of it. They want "you" (the reader? listener?) to know that they're still "living," but if they weren't, you'd be "haunt[ed]" by their memory.

      Many readers have assumed the speaker is Keats, ill with tuberculosis and contemplating the likelihood of an early death. But there's no way to know for sure, and some scholars believe these eight lines were intended for use in a longer poem or play. In other words, the speaker could be a dramatic character delivering a speech.

      The lines do have echoes elsewhere in Keats's poetry, however. For example, in his abandoned epic The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, the speaker contemplates a future "When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave."

  • “This living hand, now warm and capable” Setting

    • The poem has no defined setting. Fittingly enough, given its speaker's preoccupation with death, the only location it mentions is "the icy silence of the tomb." The speaker is merely imagining this location, but it seems vividly real in the absence of any other physical description.

      This is one way in which the poem makes the speaker seem extremely close to death—as if, while their "living hand" is writing, they've already got one foot in the grave.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “This living hand, now warm and capable”

      Literary Context

      John Keats (1795-1821) is often seen as an archetypal Romantic poet: a dreamy, sensuous soul who died tragically young. But Keats was also a vigorous, funny writer, a working-class kid making inroads into a literary scene dominated by aristocratic figures like Lord Byron. He died obscure and poor, never knowing that he would become one of the world's best-loved poets. But he had a quiet faith in his own genius: in an early letter, he once declared, "I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death."

      Keats wrote "This living hand, now warm and capable" in December 1819, shortly before he stopped writing and just over a year before he died of tuberculosis. He jotted it in the margin of a longer, comic poem he was drafting ("The Cap and Bells: or, The Jealousies"). Some critics speculate that it's addressed to his lover Fanny Brawne—from the edge of death, so to speak. The scholar Erica Levy McAlpine has even called it "a dark marriage proposal to Fanny Brawne, a too-late offering of the poet's hand to the woman he loved, straight out of the tomb." In this reading, Brawne's "conscience" would be troubled if she failed to stay true to him. Other critics believe the lines are unrelated to Brawne and were written as part of a longer poem or verse drama. Regardless, Keats never contextualized it (or completed it, if it's a fragment).

      Keats met or corresponded with most of his fellow Romantics, but never got too close to any of them. As a young writer, for instance, he was inspired by William Wordsworth, the granddaddy of English Romanticism—but was dismayed to find him pompous and conservative in person. ("Mr. Wordsworth," Wordsworth's wife Mary reprimanded the enthusiastic young Keats, "is never interrupted.") He had just one conversation with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (which seems to have felt more like an inspiring whirlwind than a friendly chat). And while Percy Shelley admired Keats's work, Keats never quite fell in with him and his elite clique; Byron, Shelley's close friend, was actively contemptuous of Keats. Keats's real circle was instead built from earthier London artists like Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Benjamin Haydon.

      Despite being something of an outsider in his time, Keats has indeed landed "among the English Poets" since his death. Ever since later Victorian writers like Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning resurrected his reputation, he's been one of the most beloved and influential of poets.

      Historical Context

      When Keats wrote this poem in 1819, he was still only 24: a young poet reaching the end of a tragically short career. His brother Tom had died of tuberculosis in December 1818, and Keats, who had some medical training and acted as Tom’s nurse, was probably infected during that period. Prior to the 20th century, tuberculosis—then known as "consumption"—had no known cure and was effectively a terminal illness.

      By the time Keats wrote “This living hand,” he was already physically declining. In 1820, doctors would order him to move to a warmer climate, and, as a consequence, away from his lover Fanny Brawne. Brawne inspired some of Keats's best-known works; he dedicated his sonnet "Bright Star" to her, for example, and wrote her many passionate letters that, along with his poems, have secured his posthumous fame. But from 1819, when Keats's health began to wane, through his death in early 1821, his letters to Brawn agonized over what would now be called their relationship status.

      The two were secretly engaged, then formally engaged; then Keats offered to break off the engagement. In that strictly patriarchal period, when women had limited opportunities for self-determination, Keats feared damaging Brawne's social standing and future marital prospects by trapping her in a doomed marriage. He was also insecure about his financial and literary status. The couple never married, but as his health deteriorated, Keats continued to express passion, jealousy, desperation, and general emotional torment in letters to Brawne.

      "This living hand," which may only be a fragment of a longer intended work, is one of the last poems Keats produced. The following year was one of fast decay. Keats arrived in Rome in November 1820 with his friend, the painter Joseph Severn. He died the next February.

  • More “This living hand, now warm and capable” Resources