A year later, his long poem, _Endymion_, appeared. The inner purpose of this poetic romance is to show the search of the soul for absolute Beauty. The first five lines are a beautiful exposition of his poetic creed. _Endymion_, however, suffers from immaturity, shown in boyish sentimentality, in a confusion of details, and in an overabundance of ornament. This poem met with a torrent of abuse. One critic even questioned whether Keats was the real name of the author, adding, "we almost doubt whether any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody." Keats showed himself a better critic than the reviewers. It is unusual for a poet to recognize almost at once the blemishes in his own work. He acknowledged that a certain critic-- "...is perfectly right in regard to the 'slipshod' _Endymion_... it is as good as I had the power to make it by myself. I have written independently, _without judgement_, I may write independently and _with judgement_ hereafter." [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL MS. OF ENDYMION.] The quickness of his development is one of the most amazing facts in literary history. He was twenty-three when _Endymion_ was published, but in the next eighteen months he had almost finished his life's work. In that brief time, he perfected his art and wrote poems that rank among the greatest of their kind, and that have influenced the work of many succeeding poets, such as Tennyson, Lowell, and Swinburne. [Illustration: ENDYMION. _From mural painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional Library, Washington, D.C._] Nearly all his greatest poems were written in 1819 and published in his 1820 volume. _The Eve of St. Agnes_ (January, 1819) and the _Ode to a Nightingale_ (May, 1819) are perhaps his two most popular poems; but his other masterpieces are sufficiently great to make choice among them largely a matter of individual preference. _The Eve of St. Agnes_ is an almost flawless narrative poem, romantic in its conception and artistic in its execution. Porphyro, a young lover, gains entrance to a hostile castle on the eve of St. Agnes to see if he cannot win his heroine, Madeline, on that enchanted evening. The interest in the story, the mastery of poetic language, the wealth and variety of the imagery, the atmosphere of medieval days, combine to make this poem unusually attractive. The following lines appeal to the senses of sight, odor, sound, and temperature,[25] as well as to romantic human feeling and love of the beautiful:-- "...like a throbbing star Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odor with the violet,-- Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set."