When I was in college, I took a course in “Romantic Poetry,” which isn’t Hallmark Greeting Card poetry but rather poetry written by young, hot (if maybe a tad overdramatic and effeminate) English dudes—Byron, Keats, Shelley—in the 17th century. One of the Keats poems we read was called Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, and it was interminably long. Thankfully, I’ve blocked almost all memory of it out, but I do remember that it concerned a pair of star-crossed lovers, the male of whom gets tragically killed, whereupon our heroine, Isabella, plants his head inside a pot of basil on her patio, after which said pot of basil flourishes. Besides the fact that it is just damned gross to think about eating basil that’s been growing atop your dead lover’s rotting head—or even having it anywhere near you—this is the sort of poem that explains why people no longer read poetry. I mean. Let’s get real.
But I’ve been thinking about that pot of basil lately, because my daughter Marcy, who’s just about Isabella’s age, took a pot of basil along with her when she went back to college in September. She loves, loves, loves basil, and she was moving into a two-bedroom suite with three other girls. They’d have their own kitchen, and she had visions of cooking up her special mozzarella, tomato and basil panini for herself every night instead of going to the dining hall, and generally feeling all grown up and on her own.
As it turns out, she’s mostly living off granola bars and coffee—and maybe some beer—but that’s okay, because you can do that when you’re young. She made a point of asking me how she should take care of her pot of basil, and I told her to water it every Wednesday and Sunday, which is when I always water my plants. I didn’t really expect the basil to live. Her suite’s windows face north, and I certainly had better things to do when I was in college than to water houseplants (such as put off reading John Keats poems). But when my husband and I went out to visit her the other weekend for Family Weekend, to my shock, there was her pot of basil on the windowsill, looking good. Some of their visitors, she told me, complain that the basil smells, but all in all, basil smell is preferable to what most dorm rooms smell like. Maybe I’ll try her on a pot of lavender at Christmastime!
In case, for some insane reason, you want to read Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, here you go: http://www.john-keats.com/gedichte/isabella.htm
Did I mention that it’s really, really, REALLY long? 🙂
Detail from William Holman Hunt’s Isabella with the Pot of Basil, 1866.
Lavender & Larkspur 
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