ew verbs, and of making
strange use of adjectives and adverbs. Some contemporaries might
object to his "_torched_ mines," "_flawblown_ sleet," "_liegeless_
air," or even to the "_calm-throated_" thrush of the immortals. Modern
lovers of poetry, however, think that he displayed additional proof of
genius by enriching the vocabulary of poetry more than any other
writer since Milton.

Keats was not, like Byron and Shelley, a reformer. He drew his first
inspiration from Grecian mythology and the romantic world of Spenser,
not from the French Revolution or the social unrest of his own day. It
is, however, a mistake to say that he was untouched by the new human
impulses. There is modern feeling in the following lines which
introduce us to the two cruel brothers in _Isabella_:--

"...for them many a weary hand did swelt
In torched mines and noisy factories.
* * * * *
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts."

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold wrote of
Keats: "He is with Shakespeare." Andrew Bradley, a twentieth century
professor of poetry in the University of Oxford, says: "Keats was of
Shakespeare's tribe." These eminent critics do not mean that Keats had
the breadth, the humor, the moral appeal of Shakespeare, but they do
find in Keats much of the youthful Shakespeare's lyrical power,
mastery of expression, and intense love of the beautiful in life. When
Keats said: "If a sparrow comes before my window, I take part in its
existence and pick about the gravel," he showed another Shakespearean
quality in his power to enter into the life of other creatures. At
first he wrote of the beautiful things that appealed to his senses or
his fancies, but when he came to ask himself the question:--

"And can I ever bid these joys farewell?"

he answered:--

"Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life,
Where I may find the agonies, the strife
Of human hearts."[26]

In _Isabella_, the _Ode to a Nightingale, Lamia_, and _Hyperion_, he
was beginning to paint these "agonies" and "the strife"; but death
swiftly ended further progress on this road. Before he passed away,
however, he left some things that have an Elizabethan appeal. Among
such, we may mention his welcome to "easeful death," his artistic