But its completeness and its truth depend upon its relation, in itself and in the poet’s mind, to the larger world of poetry, the fuller life, the rounded year of man. Nor was this forward look, this anticipation of something better and greater yet to come, lacking in the youth of Keats. It flashes out, again and again, from his letters, those outpourings of his heart and mind, so full of boyish exuberance and manly vigour, so rich in revelations of what this marvellous, beautiful, sensitive, courageous little creature really was,—a great soul in the body of a lad. It shows itself clearly and calmly in the remarkable preface in which he criticizes his own “Endymion,” calling it “a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished.” “It is just,” he writes, “that this youngster should die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it is dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to live.” The same fine hope of a sane and manly youth is expressed in his early verses entitled “Sleep and Poetry.” He has been speaking of the first joys of his fancy, in the realm of Flora and old Pan: the merry games and dances with white-handed nymphs: the ardent pursuit of love, and the satisfied repose in the bosom of a leafy world. Then his imagination goes on to something better. “And can I ever bid these joys farewell? Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, Where I may find the agonies, the strife Of human hearts: for lo! I see afar, O’ersailing the blue cragginess, a car And steeds with streamy manes—the charioteer Looks out upon the winds with glorious fear: And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly Along a huge cloud’s ridge: and now with sprightly Wheel downward come they into fresher skies, Tipt round with silver from the sun’s bright eyes. ... And there soon appear Shapes of delight, of mystery and fear, Passing along before a dusky space Made by some mighty oaks: as they would chase Some ever-fleeting music, on they sweep. Lo! how they murmur, laugh, and smile, and weep: Some with upholden hand and mouth severe; Some with their faces muffled to the ear Between their arms; some, clear in youthful bloom, Go glad and smilingly across the gloom; Some looking back, and some with upward gaze; Yes, thousands in a thousand different ways Flit onward—now a lovely wreath of girls Dancing their sleek hair into tangled curls; And now broad wings. Most awfully intent The driver of those steeds is forward bent, And seems to listen: O that I might know All that he writes with such a hurrying glow. The visions all are fled—the car is fled Into the light of heaven, and in their stead A sense of real things comes doubly strong, And, like a muddy stream, would bear along My soul to nothingness: but I will strive Against all doubtings, and will keep alive The thought of that same chariot, and the strange Journey it went.”