Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain- 27. Comp. Rom. and Jul. V. iii. 101-5, also Alastor, of the departed Poet: Silence, too enamoured of that voice, Locks its mute music in her rugged cell." 188. 29. [What part of the sentence is pride?] 32. See any history of Charles II.'s reign. 36. Who are the other two? Homer and Virgil, or Homer and Dante? Probably Shelley means the former pair. Comp. Dryden's lines, "Three poets in three distant ages born, &c." See note to Gray's Progress of Poesy, 1. 81. The Drama is not included in these surveys, or Sophocles and Shakspere could not be omitted. 37. This is a very obscure stanza. It seems to mean: not all poets have essayed such lofty flights as Milton, i. e. attempted Epic poetry, but some have wisely taken a lower level, i. e. attempted Lyric poetry, and are still remembered as Lyric poets, as for instance Gray or Burns; others, attempting a middle flight, have been cut off in the midst of their work, as Spenser, whom "Ere he ended his melodious song An host of angels flew the clouds among And rapt this swan from his attentive mates To make him one of their associates Others yet live, of whom nothing definite can yet be said, e.g. Shelley himself, Byron. 48. A graceful reference to one of Keats' own poems; see Isabella, when the "sad maiden" has found her lover's body, and carried the head away with her, and tenderly dressed and shrouded it: she Hung over her sweet Basil ever more, And moisten'd it with tears unto the core." 49. true love tears. See Rich. II. V. i. 10. True love is a corruption of troth love. 51. thy extreme hope = spes extrema. 52. blew. This blow, Lat. floreo, connected with bloom, blossom, Germ. blühen, is quite distinct from blow, Lat. flo. [What is there noticeable in the word order?] 55. Keats arrived from Naples at Rome in the late autumn of 1820. See Childe Harold, IV. lxxviii. et seq. 61. Comp. the Giaour: "He who hath bent him o'er the dead," &c. 63. liquid calm, serene; as in Georg. iv. 59, "liquida nocte." = per æstatem liquidam," Æn. x. 272 189. 65. twilight chamber. See Hymn Nat. 188, Il Penser. 133. EE 67. trace to mark out, to conduct him along, lead by a track. 69. the eternal Hunger = Death. 70. [Explain pale rage.] 75. Obs. the pastoral language; comp. Lycidas. 80. Does after their sweet pain mean after their birth-after the pains they endured when first feeling the joy of being? Birth was all that heart was to give them. 81. nor. The Pisa Edition reads or. 84. our sorrow. See Lyc. 166. 90. With this use of outwept [Explain it] comp. Tennyson's Tithonus: "The vapours weep their burden to the ground." thought to "come to ground;" see Macbeth, III. v. 25. 93. profuse. Obs. the accent. So in the Ode to a Skylark, 1. 5. “ ἀλλ ̓ ὦ φίλη δέσποινα χρυσέας κόμης, ἀνάδημα δέξαι χειρὸς εὐσεβοῦς ἀπο.” 96. [What is the force of would here?] 97. reeds. So Lat. arundo, as Virg. Æn. iv. 73, &c. 99. and dull the fierce fire of her grief by contact with his death-cold cheek. As if the heart-flame would be allayed by a physical chill! barbed radically bearded. By a metaphor the jags on the heads of an arrow or "fishing-hook"-" the points which stand backward to hinder them from being extracted" (Johnson) were called "beards". so barbed = fanged, and so generally = piercing, cruel. 190. 100. alit. Anc. Eng. alihton. The simple verb occurs in the Book of Common Prayer: "O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us." 102. i.e. which made it welcome to both the minds and the hearts of men, that won it approval from both their careful judgments and their warm, eager feelings. 105. quenched its caress chilled the warm kiss it gave. The splendour kissed; but Death, rather than Adonais, received the kiss. 107. clips = embraces, contains, holds. So in Shakspere, as Ant. and Cleop. V. ii. 362: "No grave upon the earth shall clip in it 132. See the preceding quotation. 133. she. Some editions wrongly, indeed nonsensically, read he. Echo in Class. Dict. See the story of 191, 137. Kindling. Kindle is a favourite word with Shelley; see ll. 16, 78. to 1. 18. 144. Other flowers too, not only the Hyacinth and the Narcissus, fade for grief. 149. This is the reading of the Pisa Edition. The common texts put the comma after youth, not so well. 150. Comp. Es. Agam. 49-54, of vultures hovering wildly over their desolated nest. 151. [What is the force of of here?] 152. See Introduction. 154. Comp. the famous passage in the Epitaph. Bionis, 106-11: “ αἰαὶ ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνται 157. [Explain the airs.] 16c. brere briar; here, thicket. 169. So the Epitaph. Bionis: “ καὶ σὺ μὲν ὧν σιγα πεπυκασμένος ἔσσεαι ἐν γῇ, ταῖς Νύμφαισι δ ̓ ἔδοξεν ἀεὶ τὸν βόστρυχον ᾄδειν· 192. 172. [What is meant by this spirit tender?] 174. So "one that dwelt by the castled Rhine" called the flowers, "Stars that in Earth's firmament do shine." 177. knows has the power of gathering knowledge. = 179. sightless invisible; so Macbeth, I. v. 50 vii. So viewless, Meas. for Meas. III. i. 124. 192. And allay with tears and sighs the wound at thy heart-a wound yet more grievous than that which slew Adonais. 193. So the Pisa edition. The common text omits with, which alters the sense entirely -into nonsense. 195. their sister, i. e. the echo who is mentioned in 1. 15 as singing over his songs to Urania and the others. 196. holy silence = sacro silentio, Hor. Od. II. xiii. 29. The Latin phrase meant such à silence as was observed at the time of sacrifice, when men "favoured with their tongues." 199. Comp. Shelley's lines: "Swiftly walk over the western wave, 193. 208. See above, 1. 14. Spirit of night," &c. 211. Comp Virg. Ecl x. 48, 9: "Ah! te ne frigora lædant! Ah! tibi ne teneras glacies secet aspera plantas!" 213. they never could repel = that would not be repelled, that for all the roughness she encountered was yet steadfast in her purpose to visit her perished darling (l. 46). 219. It is the opposite in Laodamia, 66-8. 225. Comp. above, l. 105. 227. Comp. Bion's Epitaph. Adonidis, 42: “ τοσσοῦτόν με φίλησον, ὅσον ζώει τὸ φίλημα.” 238. the unpastured dragon in his den the ferocious, savage critic; comp. 1. 243, Unpastured unfed, Lat. impastus, as Æn. ix. 339 = 240. mirror'd, not = reflected, but rather reflecting; strictly, mirror-furnished, bearing the shield in which folly saw its own face. 194. 245. obscene, Lat. obsceni, as in Æn. xii. 876. 250. He refers to Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 259. Lighting up the earth so brightly that it is not possible to see the stars-scattering the clouds that cover the earth, &c. 262. Comp. Virg. Ecl. x. 19. 263. magic mantles. Comp Arion's request to the sailors bent on murdering him, περιιδέειν αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ σκευῇ πάσῃ στάντα ἐν τοῖσι ἑδωλίοισι, ἀεῖσαι. (Herod. i. 24.) Milton speaks of a "poet, soaring on the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him." (Reason of Church Government.) See also the Tempest. 264. This name for Byron is suggested by the title of his "Romaunt"-Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron was commonly identified with his Pilgrim; in the 4th Canto he accepts the identification: see his letter to Hobhouse prefixed to that Canto. The visits here paid are purely figurative. Only Severn was actually with Keats at his death. 265. His fame makes a sort of vast splendid canopy over his head. "John Keats-who was killed off by one critique If not intelligible-without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. 'Tis strange the mind that fiery particle Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article." and his lines, Who killed John Keats? Byron 269. Does he refer especially to the suppression of the insurrection of 1803, and Moore's lines on the fate of Robert Emmett, one of its leaders? See amongst the Irish Melodies, Oh, breathe not his name, and When he who adores thee, and She is far from the land. (The lady referred to in the latter two songs was a daughter of Curran.) The "lyrist" is "sweetest" perhaps : but one cannot sympathize with "her saddest wrong." That rising of 1803 was utterly wild and foolish: and "marked by an act of peculiar atrocity." See Knight's Pop. Hist. of Eng. vii. 426-7, 2nd Ed. 271-96. With this picture of Shelley himself, comp. Alastor, passim ; see also Hymn 276. Acteon-like. See Ovid's Metam. iii. 138 et seq. 195. 291. Comp. the Bacchic Oupoos. See Eur. Bacch. 80, ed. Dind. : “ ἀνὰ θύρσον τε τινάσσων κισσῷ τε στεφανωθείς 297. Comp. As you like it, II. i. 50, also Cowper's Task, The Garden, 108. 298. [What is meant by partial here?] 306. His enemies pronounced him a very Cain; those who knew him better held far 7-17. here. 307. This stanza means Leigh Hunt. 308. As was Priam's; see II. xxiv. 163. 310. Comp. Milton's Epit. on the admirable dramatick Poet William Shakspeare, 313. Leigh Hunt was Keats' earliest and chief poetical friend and adviser. 315. Shelley explains in his Preface why the true generous Severn is not introduced 196, 321. Comp. extract from Byron to 1. 267. See Preface to Endymion. See Shelley's Preface, on the critics of his day. There too he singles out the derer as you are, you have spoken daggers but used none." 343. Comp. Eur. Hippol. 190-8, Polyeid. Frag. 8: “ τίς οἶδεν εἰ τὸ ζῇν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν, τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῇν κάτω νομίζεται ; " (comp. Arist. Ran. 1022, and 1404.) See also Milton's Sonnet on the Religious Memory of 197. 356. He can never become worldly, and mean, and heartless. glory." [What is meant by slow here ?] 358. in vain, i. e. without true wisdom and nobleness, not so as to be "a crown of 360. i. e. he cannot now outlive all noble impulses and enthusiasms. 362. See above, l. 120. 367. The reading morning of some editions is wrong. 370. See In Mem. xlvi. 373. Comp. Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations, &c. 120. 381. See Spenser's Hymn to Beauty, especially stanza 7, et seq. "The duller earth it quickneth with delight, Chaucer's Knight's Tale, 2156. 383. successions is here used in a concrete sense. 385. as, i. e. according as. 198. 395. there, i. e. in the region above the earth (1, 193) attained by the lofty-minded. 399. Chatterton. Coleridge also (see his Monody on the Death of Chatterton), and |