"One morn before me were three figures seen With bowed necks and joined hands, side-faced; And one behind the other stepped serene, In placid sandals, and in white robes graced; They passed like figures on a marble urn, When shifted round to see the other side; They came again; as when the urn once more Is shifted round, the first green shades return, And they were strange to me, as may betide With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A third time passed they by, and, passing, turned Each one the face a moment whiles to me; Then faded, and to follow them I burned And ached for wings, because I knew the three; The first was a fair maid, and Love her name; The second was Ambition, pale of cheek, And ever watchful, with fatigued eye; The last, whom I love more, the more of blame Is heaped upon her, maiden most unmeek,-- I knew to be my demon, Poesy." But not until he wrote the two completed books of _Hyperion_ did Keats attain to absolute mastery over his artistic material, and realise the ideal of sensuous plasticity which was ever before his eyes. In this work the relief has been superseded by the statue; and they are statues, these, which impress us with the feeling that Michael Angelo's chisel must have played a part in their production. Granted that the influence of Milton is clearly perceptible--there is more than Milton here. The nature of the subject demanded the colossal. We are told of the goddess Thea: "By her in stature the tall Amazon Had stood a pigmy's height; she would have ta'en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck; Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel." And read this description of the cavern where the Titans are assembled after their fall:--