t part these
early allusions are nothing more than tawdry conventionalisms; so indeed
are some of the later ones, as for instance in the drama of "King
Stephen," written in 1819, the schoolboy classicism of "2nd Captain"--

"Royal Maud
From the thronged towers of Lincoln hath looked down,
Like Pallas from the walls of Ilion;"

and we cannot discover that any more credit is due to Keats for
dribbling out his tritenesses about Apollo and the Muses than to any
Akenside, Mason, or Hayley, of them all. At times, however, there is a
genuine tone of _enjoyment_ in these utterances sufficient to persuade
us that the subject had really taken possession of his mind, and that he
could feel Grecian mythology, not merely as a convenient vehicle for
rhetorical personifications, but as an ever-vital embodiment of ideas of
beauty in forms of beauty. In the early and partly boyish poem, "I
stood tip-toe upon a little hill," a good deal of space is devoted to
showing that classical myths are an outcome of eager sensitiveness to
the lovely things of Nature: the tales of Psyche, Pan and Sirynx,
Narcissus, are cited in confirmation--and finally Diana and Endymion, in
the following lines:--

"Where had he been from whose warm head outflew
That sweetest of all songs, that ever new,
That aye-refreshing pure deliciousness
Coming ever to bless
The wanderer by moonlight? to him bringing
Shapes from the invisible world, unearthly singing
From out the middle air, from flowery nests,
And from the pillowy silkiness that rests
Full in the speculation of the stars.
Ah surely he had burst our mortal bars:
Into some wondrous region he had gone
To search for thee, divine Endymion.
He was a poet, sure a lover too,
Who stood on Latmus' top what time there blew
Soft breezes from the myrtle-vale below,
And brought--in faintness solemn, sweet, and slow--
A hymn from Dian's temple, while upswelling
The incense went to her own starry dwelling.
But, though her face was clear as infants' eyes,
Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice,
The poet wept at her so piteous fate--
Wept that such beauty should be desolate;
So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won,
And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion.
Queen of the wide air, thou most lovely queen
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen,
As th