_ The sun, drying up the dew
drop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as passing beads along a
string, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.
drop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as passing beads along a
string, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.
Keats
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a Lady in the Meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,
She look'd at me as she did love
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A Faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd, Ah! Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried, La belle dame sans merci,
Thee hath in thrall.
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing. . . .
NOTES ON ISABELLA.
_Metre. _ The _ottava rima_ of the Italians, the natural outcome of
Keats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by
Chaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in _The
Monks and the Giants_ and by Byron in _Don Juan_. Compare Keats's use of
the form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he
avoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but
inappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.
PAGE 49. l. 2. _palmer_, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine
where, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a
woman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.
PAGE 50. l. 21. _constant as her vespers_, as often as she said her
evening-prayers.
PAGE 51. l. 34. _within . . . domain_, where it should, naturally, have
been rosy.
PAGE 52. l. 46. _Fever'd . . . bridge. _ Made his sense of her worth more
passionate.
ll. 51-2. _wed To every symbol. _ Able to read every sign.
PAGE 53. l. 62. _fear_, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e. g. 'Fear
boys with bugs,' _Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 211.
l. 64. _shrive_, confess. As the pilgrim cannot be at peace till he has
confessed his sins and received absolution, so Lorenzo feels the
necessity of confessing his love.
PAGE 54. ll. 81-2. _before the dusk . . . veil. _ A vivid picture of the
twilight time, after sunset, but before it is dark enough for the stars
to shine brightly.
ll. 83-4. The repetition of the same words helps us to feel the
unchanging nature of their devotion and joy in one another.
PAGE 55. l. 91. _in fee_, in payment for their trouble.
l. 95. _Theseus' spouse. _ Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus after
having saved his life and left her home for him. _Odyssey_, xi. 321-5.
l. 99. _Dido. _ Queen of Carthage, whom Aeneas, in his wanderings, wooed
and would have married, but the Gods bade him leave her.
_silent . . . undergrove. _ When Aeneas saw Dido in Hades, amongst those
who had died for love, he spoke to her pityingly. But she answered him
not a word, turning from him into the grove to Lychaeus, her former
husband, who comforted her. Vergil, _Aeneid_, Bk. VI, l. 450 ff.
l. 103. _almsmen_, receivers of alms, since they take honey from the
flowers.
PAGE 56. l. 107. _swelt_, faint. Cf. Chaucer, _Troilus and Cressida_,
iii. 347.
l. 109. _proud-quiver'd_, proudly girt with quivers of arrows.
l. 112. _rich-ored driftings. _ The sand of the river in which gold was
to be found.
PAGE 57. l. 124. _lazar_, leper, or any wretched beggar; from the
parable of Dives and Lazarus.
_stairs_, steps on which they sat to beg.
l. 125. _red-lin'd accounts_, vividly picturing their neat
account-books, and at the same time, perhaps, suggesting the human blood
for which their accumulation of wealth was responsible.
l. 130. _gainful cowardice. _ A telling expression for the dread of loss
which haunts so many wealthy people.
l. 133. _hawks . . . forests. _ As a hawk pounces on its prey, so they
fell on the trading-vessels which put into port.
ll. 133-4. _the untired . . . lies. _ They were always ready for any
dishonourable transaction by which money might be made.
l. 134. _ducats. _ Italian pieces of money worth about 4_s. _ 4_d. _ Cf.
Shylock, _Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 15, 'My ducats. '
l. 135. _Quick . . . away. _ They would undertake to fleece unsuspecting
strangers in their town.
PAGE 58. l. 137. _ledger-men. _ As if they only lived in their
account-books. Cf. l. 142.
l. 140. _Hot Egypt's pest_, the plague of Egypt.
ll. 145-52. As in _Lycidas_ Milton apologizes for the introduction of
his attack on the Church, so Keats apologizes for the introduction of
this outburst of indignation against cruel and dishonourable dealers,
which he feels is unsuited to the tender and pitiful story.
l. 150. _ghittern_, an instrument like a guitar, strung with wire.
PAGE 59. ll. 153-60. Keats wants to make it clear that he is not trying
to surpass Boccaccio, but to give him currency amongst English-speaking
people.
l. 159. _stead thee_, do thee service.
l. 168. _olive-trees. _ In which (through the oil they yield) a great
part of the wealth of the Italians lies.
PAGE 60. l. 174. _Cut . . . bone. _ This is not only a vivid way of
describing the banishment of all their natural pity. It also, by the
metaphor used, gives us a sort of premonitory shudder as at Lorenzo's
death. Indeed, in that moment the murder is, to all intents and
purposes, done. In stanza xxvii they are described as riding 'with their
murder'd man'.
PAGE 61. ll. 187-8. _ere . . . eglantine.
_ The sun, drying up the dew
drop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as passing beads along a
string, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.
PAGE 62. l. 209. _their . . . man. _ Cf. l. 174, note. Notice the
extraordinary vividness of the picture here--the quiet rural scene and
the intrusion of human passion with the reflection in the clear water of
the pale murderers, sick with suspense, and the unsuspecting victim,
full of glowing life.
l. 212. _bream_, a kind of fish found in lakes and deep water. Obviously
Keats was not an angler.
_freshets_, little streams of fresh water.
PAGE 63. l. 217. Notice the reticence with which the mere fact of the
murder is stated--no details given. Keats wants the prevailing feeling
to be one of pity rather than of horror.
ll. 219-20. _Ah . . . loneliness. _ We perpetually come upon this old
belief--that the souls of the murdered cannot rest in peace. Cf.
_Hamlet_, I. v. 8, &c.
l. 221. _break-covert . . . sin. _ The blood-hounds employed for tracking
down a murderer will find him under any concealment, and never rest till
he is found. So restless is the soul of the victim.
l. 222. _They . . . water. _ That water which had reflected the three
faces as they went across.
_tease_, torment.
l. 223. _convulsed spur_, they spurred their horses violently and
uncertainly, scarce knowing what they did.
l. 224. _Each richer . . . murderer. _ This is what they have gained by
their deed--the guilt of murder--that is all.
l. 229. _stifling_: partly literal, since the widow's weed is
close-wrapping and voluminous--partly metaphorical, since the acceptance
of fate stifles complaint.
l. 230. _accursed bands. _ So long as a man hopes he is not free, but at
the mercy of continual imaginings and fresh disappointments. When hope
is laid aside, fear and disappointment go with it.
PAGE 64. l. 241. _Selfishness, Love's cousin. _ For the two aspects of
love, as a selfish and unselfish passion, see Blake's two poems, _Love
seeketh only self to please_, and, _Love seeketh not itself to please_.
l. 242. _single breast_, one-thoughted, being full of love for Lorenzo.
PAGE 65. ll. 249 seq. Cf. Shelley's _Ode to the West Wind_.
l. 252. _roundelay_, a dance in a circle.
l. 259. _Striving . . . itself. _ Her distrust of her brothers is shown
in her effort not to betray her fears to them.
_dungeon climes. _ Wherever it is, it is a prison which keeps him from
her. Cf. _Hamlet_, II. ii. 250-4.
l. 262. _Hinnom's Vale_, the valley of Moloch's sacrifices, _Paradise
Lost_, i. 392-405.
l. 264. _snowy shroud_, a truly prophetic dream.
PAGE 66. ll. 267 seq. These comparisons help us to realize her
experience as sharp anguish, rousing her from the lethargy of despair,
and endowing her for a brief space with almost supernatural energy and
willpower.
PAGE 67. l. 286. _palsied Druid. _ The Druids, or priests of ancient
Britain, are always pictured as old men with long beards. The conception
of such an old man, tremblingly trying to get music from a broken harp,
adds to the pathos and mystery of the vision.
l. 288. _Like . . . among. _ Take this line word by word, and see how
many different ideas go to create the incomparably ghostly effect.
ll. 289 seq. Horror is skilfully kept from this picture and only tragedy
left. The horror is for the eyes of his murderers, not for his love.
l. 292. _unthread . . . woof. _ His narration and explanation of what has
gone before is pictured as the disentangling of woven threads.
l. 293. _darken'd. _ In many senses, since their crime was (1) concealed
from Isabella, (2) darkly evil, (3) done in the darkness of the wood.
PAGE 68. ll. 305 seq. The whole sound of this stanza is that of a faint
and far-away echo.
l. 308. _knelling. _ Every sound is like a death-bell to him.
PAGE 69. l. 316. _That paleness. _ Her paleness showing her great love
for him; and, moreover, indicating that they will soon be reunited.
l. 317. _bright abyss_, the bright hollow of heaven.
l. 322. _The atom . . . turmoil. _ Every one must know the sensation of
looking into the darkness, straining one's eyes, until the darkness
itself seems to be composed of moving atoms. The experience with which
Keats, in the next lines, compares it, is, we are told, a common
experience in the early stages of consumption.
PAGE 70. l. 334. _school'd my infancy. _ She was as a child in her
ignorance of evil, and he has taught her the hard lesson that our misery
is not always due to the dealings of a blind fate, but sometimes to the
deliberate crime and cruelty of those whom we have trusted.
l. 344. _forest-hearse. _ To Isabella the whole forest is but the
receptacle of her lover's corpse.
PAGE 71. l. 347. _champaign_, country. We can picture Isabel, as they
'creep' along, furtively glancing round, and then producing her knife
with a smile so terrible that the old nurse can only fear that she is
delirious, as her sudden vigour would also suggest.
PAGE 72. st. xlvi-xlviii. These are the stanzas of which Lamb says,
'there is nothing more awfully simple in diction, more nakedly grand and
moving in sentiment, in Dante, in Chaucer, or in Spenser'--and again,
after an appreciation of _Lamia_, whose fairy splendours are 'for
younger impressibilities', he reverts to them, saying: 'To _us_ an
ounce of feeling is worth a pound of fancy; and therefore we recur
again, with a warmer gratitude, to the story of Isabella and the pot of
basil, and those never-cloying stanzas which we have cited, and which we
think should disarm criticism, if it be not in its nature cruel; if it
would not deny to honey its sweetness, nor to roses redness, nor light
to the stars in Heaven; if it would not bay the moon out of the skies,
rather than acknowledge she is fair. '--_The New Times_, July 19, 1820.
l. 361. _fresh-thrown mould_, a corroboration of her fears. Mr. Colvin
has pointed out how the horror is throughout relieved by the beauty of
the images called up by the similes, e. g. 'a crystal well,' 'a native
lily of the dell. '
l. 370. _Her silk . . . phantasies_, i. e. which she had embroidered
fancifully for him.
PAGE 73. l. 385. _wormy circumstance_, ghastly detail. Keats envies the
un-self-conscious simplicity of the old ballad-writers in treating such
a theme as this, and bids the reader turn to Boccaccio, whose
description of the scene he cannot hope to rival. Boccaccio writes: 'Nor
had she dug long before she found the body of her hapless lover, whereon
as yet there was no trace of corruption or decay; and thus she saw
without any manner of doubt that her vision was true. And so, saddest of
women, knowing that she might not bewail him there, she would gladly, if
she could, have carried away the body and given it more honourable
sepulture elsewhere; but as she might not do so, she took a knife, and,
as best she could, severed the head from the trunk, and wrapped it in a
napkin and laid it in the lap of the maid; and having covered the rest
of the corpse with earth, she left the spot, having been seen by none,
and went home. '
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