I. POEMS

Page 1. IMITATION OF SPENSER.

A transcript of this poem in a copy-book of Tom Keats contains two variations from the text of 1817. Line 12 reads,

'Whose silken fins, and golden scales light' and in line 29 glassy for glossy. The first reading is required by the rhythm; but the absence of the mark of the possessive case leads one to think that the accent mark may have been a hasty reading of the proper mark as printed.

Page 9. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

That it was Balboa and not Cortez who first saw the Pacific Ocean, an American school-boy could have told Keats; but it is not such slips as these that unmake poetry.

Page 9. EPISTLE TO GEORGE FELTON MA

The original valentine of which these lines are an enlargement was as follows: :

Hadst thou lived in days of old,
Oh, what wonders had been told
Of thy lively dimpled face,
And thy footsteps full of grace:
Of thy hair's luxurious darkling,
Of thine eye's expressive sparkling,
And thy voice's swelling rapture,
Taking hearts a ready capture.
Oh! if thou hadst breathed then,
Thou hadst made the Muses ten.
Couldst thou wish for lineage higher

Than twin sister of Thalia?

At least for ever, ever more
Will I call the Graces four.'

Then follow lines 41-68, and the valentine closes,

Ah me! whither shall I flee?
Thou hast metamorphosed me.
Do not let me sigh and pine,
Prythee be my valentine.'

Page 13. SONNET: TO ONE WHO HAS BEEN

LONG IN CITY PENT.

Mr. Forman points out Keats's echo in the first line of Milton's line,

'Green little vaulter in the sunny grass

Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that 's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

One to the fields, the other to the hearth,

Both have your sunshine; both though small are strong
At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,—
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.'

Page 40. LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN. Sir Charles Dilke has a manuscript copy of which the four closing lines are:

Our freshening River through yon birchen

grove :

Do come now!' Could he gainsay her who strove,

So soothingly, to breathe away a Curse?

Lines 440-442.

When last the Harvesters rich armfuls took.
She tied a little bucket to a Crook,

Ran some swift paces to a dark well's side,
And in a sighing-time return'd, supplied
With spar-cold water; in which she did squeeze
A snowy napkin, and upon her knees
Began to cherish her poor Brother's face;
Damping refreshfully his forehead's space,
His eyes, his Lips: then in a cupped shell
She brought him ruby wine; then let him
smell,

Time after time, a precious amulet,
Which seldom took she from its cabinet.
Thus was he quieted to slumbrous rest:

Line 466.

A cheerfuller resignment, and a smile
For his fair Sister flowing like the Nile
Through all the channels of her piety,
He said: 'Dear Maid, may I this moment die,
If I feel not this thine endearing Love.

Lines 470-472.

From woodbine hedges such a morning feel,
As do those brighter drops, that twinkling steal
Through those pressed lashes, from the blos-
som'd plant

Lines 494, 495.

More forest-wild, more subtle-cadenced
Than can be told by mortal; even wed
The fainting tenors of a thousand shells
To a million whisperings of lily bells;
And mingle too the nightingale's complain
Caught in its hundredth echo; 't would be
vain :

Lines 539, 540.

And come to such a Ghost as I am now! But listen, Sister, I will tell thee how.

Lines 545, 556.

And in this spot the most endowing boon
Of balmy air, sweet blooms, and coverts fresh
Has been outshed; yes, all that could enmesh
Our human senses - make us fealty swear
To gadding Flora. In this grateful lair
Have I been used to pass my weary eves.

Line 555. Ditamy. So Keats unmistakably in manuscript and print. The prevailing form is dittany.

Line 573. Mr. Forman says that in the manuscript something was written over this line in pencil, but then rubbed out. He suggests that after all Keats decided to leave the reader to accent the first syllable of enchantment, and so correct the otherwise faulty rhythm.

Lines 600, 601.

And to commune with them once more I rais'd My eyes right upward: but they were quite dazed.

An example of the freedom of accent which Keats uses in common with other poets who have a mastery of line.

Line 632. Handfuls of bud-stars.
Line 646.

But lapp'd and lull'd in safe deliriousness;
Sleepy with deep foretasting, that did bless
My Soul from Madness, 't was such certainty.
Line 651.

There hollow sounds arous'd me, and I died.
Line 665.

Our feet were soft in flowers. Hurry o'er
O sacrilegious tongue the-best be dumb;
For should one little accent from thee come
On such a daring theme, all other sounds
Would sicken at it, as would beaten hounds
Scare the elysian Nightingales.

Line 722.

This all? Yet it is wonderful — exceeding -
And yet a shallow dream, for ever breeding
Tempestuous Weather in that very Soul
That should be twice content, twice smooth,
twice whole,

As is a double Peach. 'Tis sad Alas!

Lines 896, 897.

In the green opening smiling. Gods that keep,
Mercifully, a little strength of heart
Unkill'd in us by raving, pang and smart;
And do preserve it like a lily root,
That, in another spring, it may outshoot
From its wintry prison; let this hour go
Drawling along its heavy weight of woe

And leave me living! 'Tis not more than need

Your veriest help. Ah! how long did I feed
On that crystalline life of Portraiture !
How hover'd breathless at the tender lure!
How many times dimpled the watery glass
With maddest kisses; and, till they did pass
And leave the liquid smooth again, how mad!
O't was as if the absolute sisters had
My Life into the compass of a Nut
Or all my breathing and shut
To a scanty straw. To look above I fear'd

Lines 23. 24.

The mighty ones who're shone athwart the day Of Greece and England.

Lines 70-172

Himself with every mystery, util
Ha weary legs he rested on the vill

Of some remotest chamber, orties dim.

Lines 273-20).

Whose fitting Lantern, through rude nettleberia

Cheats me into a bog.-enttings and shreds Of old Vexations plaited to a rope Wherewith to haul us from the sight of hope, And bind us to our earthly baiting-ring.

Line 285. The reading rought is derived from the manmeript, though the first edition has caught.

Line 303. Originally this imperfect line read,

To was Ionian and Tyrian. Dire

and then followed a weak passage, which was afterward thrown out and the better lines that follow substituted; but in making the change Keats apparently overlooked this defect.

Line 576 et seq. Compare this passage with Spenser's account of the garden of Adonis in Faerie Queene, Book III. canto vi.

That the wild warmth prob ́d the young sleeper's heart

Enchantingly; and with a sudden start

His trembang arms were out in instant time
To catch his fainting love. -O focêsh rhyme,
What mighty power is in thee that so often
Thon strivest rugged syllables to soften
Even to the telling of a sweet like this.
Away! let them embrace alone! that kiss
Was far too rich for thee to talk upon.
Poor wreten! mind not those sobs and sighs!
begone!

Speak not one atom of thy paltry stuff.
That they are met is poetry enough.

Line 541. The finished manuscript reads dies: the first edition has dyes. The former seems the more poetie reading, and yet the construction would introduce a new image rather abruptly. Line 5. The text reads.

*Thou shouldst mount up to with me. Now adieu !! But the word 'to' so destroys both rhythm and sense, that I have ventured to throw it out as an overlooked error.

Line 589. By throwing the emphasis strongly on ail, the meaning of the line is made evident. Line 628. Keats tried massy, blackening, and bulging, before he settled on jutting.

Lines 642-657.

About her majesty, and her pale brow With turrets crown'd, which forward heavily bow

Weighing her chin to the breast. Four lions draw

The wheels in sluggish time- each toothed

maw

Shut patiently-eyes hid in tawny veilsDrooping about their paws, and nervy tails Cowering their tufted brushes to the dust.

Lines 657-660.

To cloudborne Jove he bent: and there was

tost

Into his grasping hands a silken cord
At which without a single impious word
He swung upon it off into the gloom.

Lines 668-671.

With airs delicious. Long he hung about
Before his nice enjoyment could pick out
The resting place: but at the last he swung
Into the greenest cell of all-among
Dark leaved jasmine: star flower'd and be
strown
With golden moss.

Lines 756, 757.

Enchantress! tell me by this mad embrace, By the moist languor of thy breathing face.

But after the strange voice is on the wane
And 't is but guess'd from the departing sound.

Mr. Forman makes a very plausible surmise that Keats had a half purpose to go on with a fine description of this voice and he prints the verses that follow. They are not in the draft, nor in any of the annotated copies to which he refers, but appear in Leigh Hunt's The Indicator for 19 January, 1820. They are well worth preserving, since if they are not by Keats they must surely have been penned by some one in Keats's and Hunt's circle who had an extraor dinary knack at imitation of Keats.

Oh! what a voice is silent. It was soft
As mountain-echoes, when the winds aloft
(The gentle winds of summer) meet in caves;
Or when in sheltered places the white waves
Are 'waken'd into music, as the breeze
Dimples and stems the current or as trees
Shaking their green locks in the days of June:
Or Delphic girls when to the maiden moon
They sang harmonious pray'rs or sounds that come
(However near) like a faint distant hum

Out of the grass, from which mysterious birth
We guess the busy secrets of the earth.
-Like the low voice of Syrinx, when she ran
Into the forest from Arcadian Pan;
Or sad Enone's, when she pined away
For Paris, or (and yet 't was not so gay)
As Helen's whisper when she came to Troy,
Half sham'd to wander with that blooming boy.
Like air-touch'd harps in flowery casements hung;
Like unto lovers' ears the wild woods sung
In garden bowers at twilight; like the sound
Of Zephyr when he takes his nightly round
In May, to see the roses all asleep:

Or like the dim strain which along the deep
The sea-maid utters to the sailors' ear,
Telling of tempests, or of dangers near.
Like Desdemona, who (when fear was strong
Upon her soul) chaunted the willow song,
Swan-like before she perish'd or the tone
Of flutes upon the waters heard alone:
Like words that come upon the memory
Spoken by friends departed; or the sigh
A gentle girl breathes when she tries to hide
The love her eyes betray to all beside.'

Line 880.

And shells outswelling their faint tinged curls.

BOOK III. 'Keats said with much simplicity,' reports Woodhouse, "It will be easily seen what I think of the present ministers, by the beginning of the third Book." Keats may have had Milton and Lycidas in mind when he thus covertly made a poem serve as a scourge. Lines 31, 32.

In the several vastnesses of air and fire:
And silent as a corpse upon a pyre.

Lines 41. Keats was wont to record the date when he finished a book, but he wrote against this line, Oxford, Septr. 5, [1817] as if to register his oath and connect the opening of the book with the immediate time.