It was a great disillusion; a keen disappointment.

The birth of my sons certainly gave me some pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were lovable and lovely; but as boys--as men--what bitterness they brought me! Were they the heirs of Love?
Nay!--surely Love never generated such callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature, grasping all and giving nothing.

Is there no such virtue on earth as pure unselfish Love ?--love that gives itself freely, unasked, without hope of advantage or reward--and without any personal motive lurking behind its offered tenderness ?" He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea.

But no such cheering word met his eyes.

Keats is essentially the poet of the young, and for the old he has no comfort.