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.

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! "T is 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

His sullen limbs upon the grass what tongue, What airy whisperer spoilt his angry rest?

Line 102.

And carelessly began to twine and twist.

Lines 143, 144.

His soul to take a city of delight

O what a wretch is he: 't is in his sight.

Line 227.

Whose track the venturous Latmian follows bold.

Lines 253, 254.

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

Lines 270-272.

Himself with every mystery, until
His weary legs he rested on the sill

Of some remotest chamber, outlet dim.

Lines 278-280.

Whose flitting Lantern, through rude nettlebeds,

Cheats us into a bog,- cuttings 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 raught is derived from the manuscript, though the first edition has caught.

Line 363. Originally this imperfect line read,

'To seas 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 376 et seq. Compare this passage with Spenser's account of the garden of Adonis in Faerie Queene, Book III. canto vi.

Lines 396, 397.

And draperies mellow-tinted like the peach,
Or lady peas entwined with marigolds.

Line 400. Tenting swerve, as Keats informed a friend who did not at once perceive the meaning, is a swerve in the form of the top of a tent. Line 416.

The creeper, blushing deep at Autumn's blush. Line 436.

For 't is the highest reach of human honour.

Lines 461-464.

Who would not be so bound, but, foolish elf,
He was content to let Divinity

Slip through his careless arms- content to see
An unseized heaven sighing at his feet.

It is not easy to see why Keats should substitute amorous plea faint through' for Divinity slip through.'

Line 482.

Over this paly corse, the crystal shower.

Lines 505, 506.

Cupids awake! or black and blue we 'll pinch Your dimpled arms.

Lines 526-533.

Queen Venus bending downward, so o'ertaken, So suffering sweet, so blushing mad, so shaken

That the wild warmth prob'd the young sleep er's heart

Enchantingly; and with a sudden start
His trembling arms were out in instant time
To catch his fainting love. - O foolish rhyme,
What mighty power is in thee that so often
Thou 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 wretch! 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 poetic reading, and yet the construction would introduce a new image rather abruptly. Line 578. 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 all, 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 veils — Drooping 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.

Lines 760, 761.

These tenderest-and by the breath-the

love

The passion-nectar-Heaven!-'Jove above!

Line 800.

Does Pallas self not love? she must - she must!

Lines 849, 850.

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 extraordinary 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.

Yes, yes! and thou dost love her well- I 'll pull.

Page 110. ISABELLA, OR THE POT OF BASIL. Stanza xxx., line 5. A manuscript variation is:

'What might have been too plainly did she see,' Stanza xxxv., lines 4-7, another reading: 'Had marr'd his glossy hair, that once could shoot Bright gold into the Sun, and stamp'd his doom

Upon his soiled lips, and took the mellow Lute From his deep voice, and down past his loamed ears.' Stanza xxxviii., the last two lines in the manuscript read:

'Go, shed a tear upon my heather bloom And I shall turn a diamond in my tomb.' Stanza liv., last line. Leafits seems to be a word of Keats's coinage.

Stanza lxiii. Mr. Forman in the Appendix to the second volume of his edition of Keats has a long note on the 'sad ditty' born of the story of Isabella, in which he shows that the air of the Basil Pot song, though not now current, was common enough in medieval manuscripts and printed collections of popular poetry.

Page 123. TRANSLATION FROM A SONNET BY RONSARD.

The following is the original:

'Nature, ornant Cassandre, qui deuoit

De sa douceur forcer les plus rebelles,
La composa de cent beautez nouuelles,
Que dès mille ans en espargne elle anoit :-
De tous les biens qu' Amour au ciel connoit
Comme un trèsor cherement sous ses ailes
Elle enrichit les graces immortelles
De son bel œil qui les Dieux esmouuoit.—
Du Ciel à peine elle estoit descenduë
Quand ie la vey, quand mon asme esperduë
En dueint folle, et d'un si poignant trait,
Amour coula ses beautez en mes veines,
Qu'autres plaisirs ie ne sens que mes peines
Ny autre bien qu'adorer son portrait.

Page 123. SONNET: TO A LADY SEEN FOR A FEW MOMENTS AT VAUXHALL.