Perry Mason and John Keats

The trial is over. The murderer — who did the deed on Halloween — confessed in the courtroom. Perry Mason, Paul Drake, and Della Street sit in Mason’s office:

MASON (examining a Halloween mask)
    From the religious vigil of All Hallows’ Eve to
    murder: Halloween’s come a long way.

DRAKE (as if reciting poetry)
    Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and
        sepulchres.

STREET (a bit surprised)
    Paul, you’re reciting poetry.

DRAKE (innocently)
    Am I?

MASON (as if reciting poetry)
    But strength alone is like a fallen angel: trees
        uptorn,
    and darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and
        sepulchres.

DRAKE (as if surprised)
    Hey, whaddaya know? Keats.

From John Keats’s “Sleep and Poetry” (1816):

But strength alone though of the Muses born
Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs,
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.

You can watch this scene from “The Case of the Dodging Domino” (1962) at YouTube.

*

May 5, 2020: John Rabe writes to point out the presence of the word burrs in the passage from Keats. “I wonder,” John writes, “if that’s what caught the scriptwriter’s eye.” And I wonder how I didn’t see the word when I made this post.

Mason (Raymond Burr) stops reciting just in time to avoid a wildly meta moment.

[This post is for my friend Rob Zseleczky, who may be happy to know that you can still find Keats on television these days.]