'Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave A paradise for a sect; the savage, too, From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep Guesses at heaven; pity these have not Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf The shadows of melodious utterance, But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die; For poesy alone can tell her dreams,-- With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable chain And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, 'Thou art no poet--mays't not tell thy dreams'? Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved, And been well-nurtured in his mother-tongue. Whether the dream now purposed to rehearse Be poet's or fanatic's will be known When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.'
We may admit that the form of these lines is unfortunate; but we cannot wish them away. They bear most closely upon the innermost argument of the poem as Keats endeavoured to reshape it. All men, says Keats, have their visions of reality; but the poet alone can express his, and the poet himself may at the last prove to have been a fanatic, one who has imagined 'a paradise for a sect' instead of a heaven for all humanity.
This discovery marks the point of crisis in Keats's development. He is no longer content to be the singer; his poetry must be adequate to all experience. No wonder then that the whole of the new Induction centres about this thought. He describes his effort to fight against an invading death and to reach the altar in the mighty dream palace. As his foot touches the altar-step life returns, and the prophetic voice of the veiled goddess reveals to him that he has been saved by his power 'to die and live again before Thy fated hour.'
'"None can usurp this height," return'd that shade. "But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery and will not let them rest. All else who find a haven in the world Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days, If by a chance into this fane they come, Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half."'
Because he has been mindful of the pain in the world, the poet has been saved. But the true lovers of humanity,--
'Who love their fellows even to the death, Who feel the giant agony of the world,'