CANTO I
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 charm
And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,
‘Thou art no Poet may’st 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 purpos’d to rehearse
Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known
When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave. 
Everyone has their dreams and visions and yet who but a writer, a poet transcibes them onto paper, recording them for times when they are long departed? Keats’ poem The Fall of Hyperion has been unknown to me and suddenly today, perhaps in the light of my image of magical scales (on the blog) yesterday, Keats once again loomed large in my head…I think he is always my favourite poet, certainly one whom I feel a fiercely fond affectionate for as his writing changed my whole outlook on language and agitated me out of the complacency of ‘safe’ English studies at Liverpool University years ago. I Remember an inspirational lecture on The Lamia by Jenny Newman who was at that time married to my best teacher Steve Newman and who used words that made writing secret, anarchic and erotically dangerous.
I love the phrase ‘Guesses at heaven.’ Aren’t we all savages in secret? And look how Keats’ speaker thrives on the language of magic. Imagination is a place accompanied by enchantment and spells. A place of ‘poesy’ tentatively accessed through a langauge which risks and dares?
Ironically this opening recognises that Keats’ attempt to record a dream is an attempt that will outlive his ‘hand’, perhaps few other writers have ever been as aware of their own impending mortality and the possible utter extinction of both self and works.