what does the second part of this Keats quote mean? -?

Question

After thence....(I know the word mawkishness.....I just cant figure out what on earth Keats was trying to say....

Does it mean that in reading the pages one experiences the same feeling as being in that phase? or that one who has been though it would understand? or what?!?!? I'm sure there are other options....

Could someone please paraphrase the last part of the sentence in clear modern american english?

Thanks a bunch - I was going to use it as an inscription to a book - but now I'm not sure that it means what I thought....its a keats quote for a keats fan....but really, whats it mean?

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thicksighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages."

Its the preface to Endymion if that might help....

Answer 1

there is a period of time (the following pages) when man is weakly sentimental (mawkishness) and must endure pain (thousand bitters) during the period between childhood and adulthood (undecided character, fermenting soul)

Answer 2

Man, it's been almost 20 years since College Poetry, but I'll try:

I think Keats was the one that wrote a lot about innocence and experience. That as a child, a person was innocnet, but as they became older, they gained experience, some they wished they hadn't. Once they realize, they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back to innoncence.

It sounds like here, the mature man has gone from innoncence as a child, to the experience phase as an adult, but was able to get back to innoncence again. The bitters, ambitions, etc. were the "stupid" stages they were going through for all those years in between the two innocent phases.

Answer 3

From what I can tell after reading this phrase, I think that he means although you have good imagination, there are always drawbacks such as unrest in the soul, hard to make decision, no direction in life and no ambition which produces a sickening feeling. This all describes those people whom he spoke of and must taste it when they read on the following pages.