By James Charlton in “Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?”

Percy Shelly was despondent. After banging out pamphlets and poems, odes and dramas with ease he had suddenly run up against that which all poets fear more than editorial rejection — writer’s block. No matter how hard he tried, nothing came. Page after page of jibberish went into the basket.

Pacing the streets of Oxford one morning he encountered his good friend Keats. Keats was in fine spirits but soon became … Read the rest...