HYPERION. BOOK II 167 HYPERION. BOOK III 191 NOTE ON ADVERTISEMENT 201 INTRODUCTION TO LAMIA 201 NOTES ON LAMIA 203 INTRODUCTION TO ISABELLA AND THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 210 NOTES ON ISABELLA 215 NOTES ON THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 224 INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE, ODE ON A GRECIAN URN, ODE ON MELANCHOLY, AND TO AUTUMN 229 NOTES ON ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 232 NOTES ON ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 235 INTRODUCTION TO ODE TO PSYCHE 236 NOTES ON ODE TO PSYCHE 237 INTRODUCTION TO FANCY 238 NOTES ON FANCY 238 NOTES ON ODE ['Bards of Passion and of Mirth'] 239 INTRODUCTION TO LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 239 NOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 239 INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN HOOD 240 NOTES ON ROBIN HOOD 241 NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN' 242 NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY 243 INTRODUCTION TO HYPERION 244 NOTES ON HYPERION 249 LIFE OF KEATS Of all the great poets of the early nineteenth century--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats--John Keats was the last born and the first to die. The length of his life was not one-third that of Wordsworth, who was born twenty-five years before him and outlived him by twenty-nine. Yet before his tragic death at twenty-six Keats had produced a body of poetry of such extraordinary power and promise that the world has sometimes been tempted, in its regret for what he might have done had he lived, to lose sight of the superlative merit of what he actually accomplished. The three years of his poetic career, during which he published three small volumes of poetry, show a development at the same time rapid and steady, and a gradual but complete abandonment of almost every fault and weakness. It would probably be impossible, in the history of literature, to find such another instance of the 'growth of a poet's mind'. The last of these three volumes, which is here reprinted, was published in 1820, when it 'had good success among the literary people and . . . a moderate sale'. It contains the flower of his poetic production and is perhaps, altogether, one of the most marvellous volumes ever issued from the press.