The impression Hyperion makes is one, as Woodhouse on first reading it justly noted, of serene mastery by the poet both over himself and over his art:вЂ“вЂIt has an air of calm grandeur about it which is indicative of true powerвЂ™: and again,вЂ“вЂthe above lines give but a faint idea of the sustained grandeur and quiet power which characterize the poem.вЂ™ Woodhouse goes on to tell what he knew of the scheme of the work as Keats had first conceived it:вЂ“ From the poem as far as it was written no reader could guess either that it was taken up as a вЂfeverous reliefвЂ™ from tendance on his dying brother, or that in continuing it later under BrownвЂ™s roof he had to put force upon himself against the intrusion of private cares and affections upon his thoughts, as well as against a reaction from his own mode of conceiving and handling the task itself. The next fragment we come to is colossal,вЂ“it is Hyperion itself. Considering how meagre are the hints antiquity has left us concerning Maia, the eldest of the Pleiades and mother of Hermes, and her late identification with the Roman divinity to whom sacrifice was paid on the first of May, and hence how little material for development the theme seems to offer,вЂ“considering these things, perhaps it is as well that Keats, despite his promise to finish it вЂall in good time,вЂ™ should have tantalized posterity by breaking off this beautiful thing where he did. The words figuring what Greek poets were and did for Greek communities, and expressing the aspiration to be even as they, bear the true, the classic, mint-mark of absolute economy and simplicity in absolute rightness. Was he trying an experiment in the naked and Grecian style when on May day 1818 he wrote at Teignmouth the beginning of an ode on Maia? He never went on with it, and the fragment as it stands is of fourteen lines only but these are in a more truly Greek manner than anything else he wrote, not even excepting, as I have just said, the Ode to Autumn. When Keats, drawing near the end of his work on Endymion, was meditating what he meant to be his second long and arduous poem, Hyperion, he still thought and spoke of it as a вЂromance.вЂ™ But a phrase he uses elsewhere shows him conscious that its style would have to be more вЂnaked and GrecianвЂ™ than that of Endymion.

Such again are the several passages in which he expresses a mood that frequently beset him, that of being rapt in spirit too high above earth to breathe, too far above his body not to feel an awful intoxication and fear of coming madness:вЂ“Д«ut our main business in this chapter must be not with illuminating snatches such as these, but with things begun of set purpose and not carried through. Such, very especially, is the cry declaring that the true poet is the soul sympathetic with every form and mode of life and ready to merge its identity in that of any and every sentient creature: compare the passage in one of his letters where he tells how his own can enter into that of a sparrow picking about the gravel:вЂ“ Such is the contrasted passage of shifting, perplexed meditation on the problems of life, and the failure of the imagination to solve them alone, in the rimed epistle to the same friend six weeks later. Such, though they only express a passing mood, are the lines in his letter to Reynolds of February 1818, translating the early song of the thrush into a warning not to fret after knowledge. Much of our clearest insight into KeatsвЂ™s mind and genius is gained from the class of his fragments which do not represent any definite poetical purpose or plan, and were never meant to be more than mere snatches and momentary outpourings. ScottвЂ“The solutionвЂ“Keats as dramatistвЂ“Otho and King StephenвЂ“The Cap and BellsвЂ“Why a failureвЂ“Flashes of BeautyвЂ“Recast of HyperionвЂ“Its leading ideas-Their history in KeatsвЂ™s mindвЂ“Preamble: another feast of fruits-The sanctuaryвЂ“The admonitionвЂ“The monitressвЂ“The attempt breaks off.

Snatches expressive of moodsвЂ“Ode to MaiaвЂ“Hyperion: its scheme and scaleвЂ“Sources: Homer and HesiodвЂ“Pierre RonsardвЂ“Miltonisms-Voices of the TitansвЂ“A match and no match for MiltonвЂ“A great beginningвЂ“Question as to sequelвЂ“Difficulties and a suggestionвЂ“The scheme abandonedвЂ“The Eve of St MarkвЂ“Chaucer and Morris-Judgement of RossettiвЂ“Dissent of W. CHAPTER XIV WORK OF 1818, 1819 CONTINUED: THE FRAGMENTS AND EXPERIMENTS

Rimed two strophes