Page:Keats, poems published in 1820 (Robertson, 1909).djvu/27

Rh the poet and at his enemies. But we know now how mistaken they were. Keats, in a normal state of mind and body, was never unduly depressed by harsh or unfair criticism. 'Praise or blame,' he wrote, 'has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works,' and this attitude he consistently maintained throughout his poetic career. No doubt the sense that his genius was unappreciated added something to the torment of mind which he suffered in Rome, and on his death-bed he asked that on his tombstone should be inscribed the words 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'. But it was apparently not said in bitterness, and the rest of the inscription expresses rather the natural anger of his friends at the treatment he had received than the mental attitude of the poet himself. Fully to understand him we must read his poetry with the commentary of his letters which reveal in his character elements of humour, clear-sighted