adapted
to express a dying-away of sound.

PAGE 98. l. 266. _soother_, sweeter, more delightful. An incorrect use
of the word. Sooth really means truth.

l. 267. _tinct_, flavoured; usually applied to colour, not to taste.

l. 268. _argosy_, merchant-ship. Cf. _Merchant of Venice_, I. i. 9,
'Your argosies with portly sail.'

PAGE 99. l. 287. Before he desired a 'Morphean amulet'; now he wishes to
release his lady's eyes from the charm of sleep.

l. 288. _woofed phantasies._ Fancies confused as woven threads. Cf.
_Isabella_, l. 292.

l. 292. '_La belle . . . mercy._' This stirred Keats's imagination, and
he produced the wonderful, mystic ballad of this title (see p. 213).

l. 296. _affrayed_, frightened. Cf. l. 198.

PAGE 100. ll. 298-9. Cf. Donne's poem, _The Dream_:--

My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.

l. 300. _painful change_, his paleness.

l. 311. _pallid, chill, and drear._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187, 258.

PAGE 101. l. 323. _Love's alarum_, warning them to speed away.

l. 325. _flaw_, gust of wind. Cf. _Coriolanus_, V. iii. 74; _Hamlet_,
V. i. 239.

l. 333. _unpruned_, not trimmed.

PAGE 102. l. 343. _elfin-storm._ The beldame has suggested that he must
be 'liege-lord of all the elves and fays'.

l. 351. _o'er . . . moors._ A happy suggestion of a warmer clime.

PAGE 103. l. 355. _darkling._ Cf. _King Lear_, I. iv. 237: 'So out went
the candle and we were left darkling.' Cf. _Ode to a Nightingale_, l.
51.

l. 360. _And . . . floor._ There is the very sound of the wind in this
line.

PAGE 104. ll. 375-8. _Angela . . . cold._ The death of these two leaves
us with the thought of a young, bright world for the lovers to enjoy;
whilst at the same time it completes the contrast, which the first
introduction of the old bedesman suggested, between the old, the poor,
and the joyless, and the young, the rich, and the happy.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE, ODE ON A GRECIAN URN, ODE ON
MELANCHOLY, AND TO AUTUMN.

These four odes, which were all written in 1819, the first three in the
early months of that year, ought to be considered together, since the
same strain of thought runs through them all and, taken all together,
they seem to sum up Keats's philosophy.

In all of them the poet looks upon life as it is, and the eternal
principle of beauty, in the first three seeing them in sharp contrast;
in the last reconciling them, and leaving us content.

The first-written of