So that the moon represents to Keats the eternal idea, the one essence
in all. This is how he writes of it, in what is an entirely mystical
passage in _Endymion_--
... As I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top, the sage's pen,
The poet's harp, the voice of friends, the sun;
Thou wast the river, thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast, thou wast my steed,
My goblet full of wine, my topmost deed:
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
In his fragment of _Hyperion_, Keats shadows forth the unity of all
existence, and gives magnificent utterance to the belief that change is
not decay, but the law of growth and progress. Oceanus, in his speech to
the overthrown Titans, sums up the whole meaning as far as it has gone,
in verse which is unsurpassed in English--
We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Of thunder, or of Jove ...
... on our heels a fresh perfection treads,
A power more strong in beauty, born of us
And fated to excel us, as we pass
In glory that old Darkness ...
... for 'tis the eternal law
That first in beauty should be first in might.
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