Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems of such beauty, imagination and generosity of spirit, that he had - unwittingly - fulfilled his wish that he should -be among the English poets after my death-. This wide-ranging selection of Keats-s poetry contains youthful verse, such as his earliest known poem -Imitation of Spenser-; poems from his celebrated collection of 1820 - including -Lamia-, -Isabella-, -The Eve of St Agnes-, -Ode to a Nightingale- and -Hyperion- - and later celebrated works such as -La Belle Dame sans Merci-. Also included are many poems considered by Keats to be lesser work, but which illustrate his more earthy, playful side and superb ear for everyday language.
