One of these printed a few of the young poet's sonnets
in his paper the Examiner, and in 1817 Keats published a volume
of poems. This was his good-by to medicine, for although very
little notice was taken of the book and very few copies were
sold, Keats henceforth took poetry for his life work.
The life of Keats was short, and it had no great adventures in
it. He lived much now with his two brothers until the elder,
George, married and emigrated to America, and the younger, Tom,
who had always been an invalid, died. He went on excursions too,
with his friends or by himself to country or seaside places, or
sometimes he would spend days and nights in the hospitable homes
of his friends. And all the time he wrote letters which reveal
to us his steadfast, true self, and poems which show how he
climbed the steps of fame.
Undismayed at the ill success of his first book, the next year he
published his long poem Endymion.
Endymion was a fabled Grecian youth whose beauty was so great
that Selene, the cold moon, loved him.
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