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John Keats, in the Preface to Endymion, wrote:
Knowing within myself the manner in which this poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public.
Why did he express regret in the very first lines of the book? What was the reason for his regret?
As an explanation, it's worth including the next few lines of the introduction as well:
What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such completion as to warrant their passing the press; nor should they if I though a year's castigation would do them any good; - it will not: the foundations are too sandy.
In other words, Keats was under the impression that his work - that was being published here - was written with "inexperience, immaturity, and every error". He is saying that his own writing displays a lack of experience and maturity, and was full of mistakes.
He says that the finished work is more of a "feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished"; saying that it's not so much a completed work as a delusional, incomplete attempt to write something.
Keats continues to disparage his own writing, saying that they're not really good enough to be printed, and that even a year of editing wouldn't help, because the "foundations are too sandy" - the base of the work (again, his own writing) was too "sandy" - the metaphor being that it's not a firm enough base to improve on, since the original work wasn't of good enough quality.
It's basically a long-winded way of saying that, as is the case with every single writer on Earth, he doesn't think much of his own work. It's a lot of big words to use on being self-deprecating.
