Posthumous and Fugitive Poems-continued ... "Oh, I am frighten'd with most hateful thoughts!"... Song ["The Stranger lighted from his steed,"] Song ["I had a dove and the sweet dove died;"] Sonnet to a Lady seen for a few Moments at Vauxhall... ... ILLUSTRATIONS. Portrait of Keats by Joseph Severn Emblematic Design Sleep and Poetry ... ... :: :: Frontispiece ... ... ... ... ... xxxii ... ... 60 ... ... 92 PREFACE. BY THE EDITOR. THE text and arrangement of the present edition of Keats's poetry are those of the library edition which has recently been published, on the plan of my library edition of Shelley; and in carrying it out I have followed the same principles of revision as in the other case, namely to gather together everything I could find from the hand of the poet, and to establish the text as nearly as possible in accordance with what the poet wrote or meant to write. The three volumes of poetry printed during Keats's life have been reproduced upon this plan; and their contents have been collated with all available manuscripts and printed issues of authority. The posthumous poems in order of date follow the three printed volumes; and the chronology has only been interrupted wittingly in the matter of Otho the Great, King Stephen, and The Cap and Bells. Here it was impossible to preserve the real order, because Keats had other things in progress at the same time as Otho, and these, if strict chronological order were followed, would have to be interspersed among the acts and scenes of the tragedy. It seemed better therefore to set the dramatic attempts apart as a kind of appendix, to be completed by the less happy experiment The Cap and Bells, and to leave the real poetical work of Keats to close characteristically with La Belle Dame sans Merci and the beautiful sonnet which was really the last thing he wrote in verse. The manuscripts of Endymion, Lamia, The Eve of St. Agnes, and a portion of Isabella should be mentioned as especially important among a great mass of manuscripts which have been consulted; and not the least of the fortunate chances attending my efforts to complete my work for Keats's lovers was the unexpected discovery of Richard Woodhouse's copy of Endymion, in which were noted, not only the variations of the final manuscript from the printed text, but also those of the first draft, which had not itself come to the surface. Woodhouse seems to have been an ardent admirer of Keats and an enthusiastic student of his works, as well as a capital scholar; for his copy of Endymion was interleaved, seemingly while Keats was still alive, and the textual differences above referred to were noted down in the most business-like and elaborate manner, while the pages bear many remarks and hints of a learned and acute kind, whereof I have not scrupled to avail myself in my library edition. So far as regards the largest of Keats's poems, this book has been of more service than either of the other printed copies of Endymion I have used, namely Sir Charles Dilke's copy and one in my own possession with a number of autograph corrections. But Sir Charles Dilke's copy has a quantity of manuscript poems bound up at the end; and these have yielded a good deal of assistance in textual work. |