And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
Hyperion (1818) is of a different type. For this poem Keats adopts blank verse, and for theme he goes to the primeval warfare between early deities, such as Saturn and Thea, and younger divinities, such as Apollo and Minerva. The poem remains unfinished, owing, it is stated, to the poet’s discouragement over the reception of Endymion. It is doubtful if Keats could ever have finished it. The scale of the story is so gigantic, and the style is pitched at such an altitude of sublimity that Keats appears to have been lacking in mere physical fitness to carry it to a conclusion. In the fragment that we have an observant reader can see that the poet’s grip is loosening, and his breath failing, before the effort ceases entirely. Keats, with his usual insight, appropriately writes the poem in a style of bleak and almost terrible simplicity. The opening lines are among the best:
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,