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.

Lest my hot eyeballs might be burnt and sear'd

By a blank naught. It moved as if to flee
Line 964.

Most fondly lipp'd. I kept me still- it came
Again in passionatest syllables,

And thus again that voice's tender swells:

Not quite content with passionatest, Keats tried again:

'Again in passionate syllables: saying'

BOOK II. The variations in this and the succeeding books are recorded by Mr. Forman and are derived from two sources, the first draft made by Keats, and the manuscript afterward sent by him to the printer. Those here noted are from the first draft, unless otherwise noted. Line 13. Close, i. e., embrace. Lines 27-30. Juliet leans Amid her window flowers, sighs, — and as she

weans

His sullen limbs upon the grass
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.

That the wild warmth prob'd the young sleeper'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.

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.

'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 Ixiii. 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 mediæval 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.

Where's the cheek that doth not fade,

Line 89. The following lines were dropped out, the two drafts agreeing again at line 90:

'And Jove grew languid. Mistress fair!
Thou shalt have that tressed hair
Adonis tangled all for spite;
And the mouth he would not kiss,
And the treasure he would miss ;
And the hand he would not press
And the warmth he would distress.
O the Ravishment-the Bliss !
Fancy has her where she is—
Never fulsome, never new,

There she steps! and tell me who
Has a mistress so divine?

Be the palate ne'er so fine

She cannot sicken. Break the mesh.'

Page 125. ODE: BARDS OF PASSION AND OF MIRTH.

In the copy made for George and Georgiana Keats are the following variations: —