Study of the Object

(Transcription of Keats’s Ode on a Grecian
Urn by his brother George)

The verses below, from Zbigniew Herbert’s Study of the Object, could be read as a complement to this idea proposed by Keats in his Ode on a Grecian Urn:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

from STUDY OF THE OBJECT

The most beautiful is the object
which does not exist

it does not serve to carry water
or to preserve the ashes of a hero

it was not cradled by Antigone
nor was a rat drowned in it

seen
from every side
which means
hardly anticipated

the hairs
of all its tines
join
in one stream of light

neither
blindness
nor
death
can take away the object
which does not exist

~ Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998), Polish poet