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.'

PAGE 74. l. 393. _Persean sword._ The sword of sharpness given to
Perseus by Hermes, with which he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa,
a monster with the head of a woman, and snaky locks, the sight of whom
turned those who looked on her into stone. Perseus escaped by looking
only at her reflection in his shield.

l. 406. _chilly_: tears, not passionate, but of cold despair.

PAGE 75. l. 410. _pluck'd in Araby._ Cf. Lady Macbeth, 'All the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,' _Macbeth_, V. ii. 55.

l. 412. _serpent-pipe_, twisted pipe.

l. 416. _Sweet Basil_, a fragrant aromatic plant.

ll. 417-20. The repetition m