irst volume would present nothing worthy of permanent memory,
were it not for his after achievements, and for the single sonnet upon
Chapman's Homer. Several of the compositions are veritable rubbish:
probably Keats knew at the time that they were not good, and knew soon
afterwards that they were deplorably bad. Such are the address "To Some
Ladies" who had sent the author a shell; that "On Receiving a Curious
Shell and a Copy of Verses [Moore's "Golden Chain"] from the same
Ladies;" the "Ode to Apollo" (in which Homer, Virgil, Milton,
Shakespeare, Spenser, and Tasso, are commemorated); the "Hymn to
Apollo;" the lines "To Hope" (in which there is a patriotic aspiration,
mingled with scorn for the gauds of a Court). "Calidore" has a certain
boyish ardour, clearly indicated if not well expressed. The verses "I
stood tiptoe upon a little hill" are very far from good, and are stuffed
with affectations, but do nevertheless show a considerable spice of the
real Keats. Some lines have already been quoted from this effusion,
about "flowery nests," and "the pillowy silkiness that rests full in the
speculation of the stars." It is only by an effort that we can attach
any meaning to either of these childish Della-Cruscanisms: the "pillowy
silkiness" may perhaps be clouds intermingled with stars, and the
"flowery nests" may, by a great wrenching of English, be meant for
"flowery nooks"--nests or nooks of flowers. "Sleep and Poetry" contains
various fine lines, telling and suggestive images, and luscious
descriptive snatches, and is interesting as showing the bent of the
writer's mind, and a sense of his mission begun. Serious metrical flaws
are perceptible in it here and there, and throughout this first volume
of verse--and indeed in "Endymion" as well. One metrical weakness of
which he never got rid is the accenting of the preterite or participial
form "ed" (in such words as "resolved," &c.), where its sound ekes out
with feeble stress the prosody of a line. Two songs which have genuine
lyric grace--dated in 1817, but not included in the volume of
"Poems"--are those which begin "Think not of it, sweet one, so," and
"Unfelt, unheard, unseen." The volume contains sixteen sonnets, besides
the grand one on "Chapman's Homer." The best are those which begin "Keen
fitful gusts are whispering here and there," and "Happy is England," and
the "Grasshopper and Cricket," which was written in competition with
Hunt. It seems to me that Keats's pr