For about a year following the meeting of the two, Hunt undoubtedly exerted the strongest influence of any living man over the young poet. Severn said that Keats's introduction to Hunt wrought a great change in him and "intoxicated him with an excess of enthusiasm which kept by him four or five years."[102] Mr. Forman says that "Charles Cowden Clarke, as his early mentor, Leigh Hunt and Haydon as his most powerful encouragers at the important epoch of adolescence, must be credited with much of the active influence that took Keats out of the path to a medical practitioner's life, and set his feet in the devious paths of literature."[103] Keats's interest in his profession had decreased as his knowledge and love of poetry grew. With the publication of his _Poems_ in 1817, and his retirement in April of that year from London to the Isle of Wight "to be alone and improve" himself and to continue _Endymion_, his decision was finally made in favor of a literary life. Hunt's aid at this time took the practical form of publishing Keats's poems in _The Examiner_ and of drawing the attention of the public to them by comments and reviews. Whether he ever paid Keats for any of his contributions to his periodicals is not known.[104] Through the influence of Hunt the Ollier brothers were induced to undertake the publication of Keats's first volume of poems. It is dedicated to Leigh Hunt in the sonnet _Glory and loveliness have passed away_. The sestet refers directly to him: "But there are left delights as high as these, And I shall ever bless my destiny, That in a time, when under pleasant trees Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free A leafy luxury, seeing I could please With these poor offerings, a man like thee."[105] Hunt replied in the sonnet _To John Keats_, quoted here in full because of its inacessibility: "'Tis well you think me truly one of those, Whose sense discerns the loveliness of things; For surely as I feel the bird that sings Behind the leaves, or dawn as it up grows, Or the rich bee rejoicing as he goes, Or the glad issue of emerging springs, Or overhead the glide of a dove's wings, Or turf, or trees, or midst of all, repose. And surely as I feel things lovelier still, The human look, and the harmonious form Containing woman, and the smile in ill, And such a heart as Charles's wise and warm,-- As surely as all this, I see ev'n now, Young Keats, a flowering laurel on your brow."[106] In 1820, Hunt dedicated his translation of Tasso's _Aminta_ to Keats.