ENDYMION. Keats was 23 when, in April 1818, he published his first long poem, (Endymion.) The young poet, in love no less with the beauty of his native England than with `the beautiful mythology of Greece,° incarnated in the poem his own passionate seeking for the soul of beauty in the world. We may trace this theme through the °uncertain path° of a story which is almost lost in the luxuriant tan gles and by-paths of- incident and description. Endymion, smitten with strange trance at the feast of Pan, confesses to his sister the vision of an immortal loved one that has turned waking life to despair. Led on to °woe-worn wanderings° by a mysterious command, he descends °into the silent mysteries of earth.° He is succored by Diana, urged on by Venus, who foretells hip happiness, and is moved to pity by the vain loves of Alpheus and Arethusa. And when at length his °fated way° leads him through the sea-depths to the rescue of spell bound Glaucus, Endymion's awakened sym pathy with suffering gives him power not only to restore °all lovers tempest-tost° to eternal love and youth, but to win Cynthia and im mortal bliss. So at last his mortal love, the
Indian damsel, reveals herself as the goddess; and through earthly loveliness he attains im mortal beauty. And so this story of Endymion's love for the moon-goddess is the symbol not only of Keats' intense susceptibility to the loveliness of moonlight but of his life-long passion for °the principle of beauty in all things.° The form of the poem is, like its spirit, wavering, but shot through with imaginative glory. Structure is lacking — the poet does not master his story, but is swept on by it, like Endymion on his celestial steed. Metre and diction are treated with a freedom not only Elizabethan but revolutionary. And in such lyric ecstasies as the °Hymn to Pan° and Sorrow ,° in such perfect images as °the danc ing poppies ,° "tip-toe Night,° °panting light .° grain-scented eglantine,° there speaks Keats, the magician of English poetry. Consult article °Keats,' History of English Literature' (Vol. XII) • and Colvin, Sidney, 'John Keats' (New York 1917).