Keats wrote this narrative poem at twenty-three, two years before his death, and it glows with sensuous warmth against the bitter cold of the setting. A young lover steals into a castle on the one night when a maiden may dream true visions of her future husband. The stanza form is Spenserian, the imagery lavish with medieval tapestry, stained glass, and forbidden desire. When Keats describes the feast of candied apple and quince, you can taste it. This is Romanticism as pure aesthetic rapture.