But what a splendid prelude it was! “Alastor,” the “Stanzas Written in Dejection,” the “Ode to the West Wind,” “The Cloud,” the immortal lines “To a Skylark,” are flights of poetry which reflect the splendor of the sky under which they seem to move as if impelled by wings. “Prometheus Unbound,” “The Revolt of Islam,” and other long poems show his hatred of tyranny, whether human or divine, his ardent passion for humanity. He was only at times a great artist: his verse often lacks substance and reality, and has the beauty and remoteness of cloud pictures. His critical faculty was obscured by the spontaneity and facility of his creative moods; but he had the power of growth. His best work was at the end of his career, and he died at the moment the signs of maturity were showing themselves. He had no creed save that of resistance to tyranny, and he defined nothing; but he had noble visions, a beautiful voice, a splendid faith. With all the faults of his youth, and they were of tragic seriousness, there was something angelic about him, and he made life richer and more splendid. [Illustration: THE SHELLEY MEMORIAL Designed by E. Onslow Ford.] KEATS’ LOVE OF BEAUTY [Illustration: KEATS AT HOME] [Illustration: THE GRAVE OF KEATS Keats died in Rome on February 23, 1821, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery. His last request was that on his tombstone there be carved, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”] The poets of the first quarter of the last century died young: Byron at thirty-six, Shelley at thirty, Keats at twenty-six. What Byron’s future would have been no one will venture to predict; but Shelley and Keats were rapidly gaining in power when the end came. The first was the fiery leader of revolt, the second was the idealist, concerned, not with present oppressive traditions, but with untrammeled freedom of thought and of life. Keats cared for none of these things: he was in love with beauty. One must go back to Spenser to find an Englishman of his sensitiveness to beauty, and he was much simpler than Spenser, whose moral idealism expressed itself in a refined symbolism. Keats was the son of a stable keeper, went to school for a few years, and was conspicuous chiefly for his pugnacious disposition. The impression that he was a weak, sentimental boy and man is without foundation. He became the victim of a heart-breaking disease; but his was essentially a brave and manly nature. [Illustration: THE LIFE MASK OF KEATS Attributed to Haydon by the artist Joseph Severn. From a cast made in New York, presumably from a cast of the original. An electrotype of the mask is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.]