Dramatic Moments. AN IMMORTAL LINE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 105, 28 January 1935, Page 7

Dramatic Moments. AN IMMORTAL LINE

The fame of John Resits will never die. He was born in 1795. He died in 1821 —only 25 years old. It was a little time in which to make a name, but he did it. The richness, the imagination, the “finish” of bis poems is something the world will never cease to wonder at. and to admire. He was, indeed, a rare spirit lent to Earth by Heaven, and quickly taken up again after he had given us 8011101)1 his precious thoughts. His Odes and his “St. Agnes Eve” must always have a high place in English literature; and “Endymion” will last as long as the English language lives. It is the first line of Endymion that all the world remembers. It was born in moment, it can never die. There is a story that one day Keats was sitting at his window (the window ot a room he shared with a friend), and that he turned from his writing to read what be had ‘ written. He read, A thing of beauty is a constant joy. His friend pondered it, smiled, and then said gravelv that he was not satished with it. Then Keats thought again, and, taking up his pen, he wrote, A thing of beauty ix a- joy for ever, one of the most famous lines in the world s poetry- j