ODE: BARDS OF PASSION

Written in Keats's copy of Beaumont and Fletcher, on a blank page before the tragi-comedy "The Fair Maid of the Inn."

FANCY

The fickleness of delight is rendered in a quick, rippling music- as in Shelley's "Song: Rarely, rarely comest thou" (page 204). What is the difference of emphasis between the two poems?

(241.) 11-12. And the enjoying — — — its blossoming: Our very capacity for enjoying the beauties of springtime is itself as transitory as those beauties.

21. shoon: shoes.

35. heaped Autumn's: Here, and in "caked snow" (line 20), Keats may have intended a spondaic effect, in which case the "ed" would not be sounded as a separate syllable. His stated rule - which, however, he did not consistently follow was to sound the mute “e” in “ed" unless he elided it in manuscript. In these selections, it is marked with an accent (èd) when the emotional and rhythmic movement seems certainly to require the syllable (e.g., "wingèd" in line 5). The "e" is not elided when it is clearly mute (e.g., "whiteplumed" in line 49; given "white-plum'd" in standard editions).

valistic story of romantic love. The two poems may be fruitfully compared as to purport and value. In inventing the story of Porphyro and Madeline, Keats had in mind the familiar type of Border escapade used by Scott in "Lochinvar" (page 89). But Porphyro has no rival except his own "looks immortal" in the girl's magic dream (line 313).

(242.) 1. bitter chill: In popular tradition, St. Agnes' Eve, January 20, was likely to be the coldest night of the year. Keats uses the cold to frame the warm picture that presently appears, and to harmonize with the suggestion of remoteness and magic that runs through it.

16. orat'ries: oratories, small side

chapels for prayer. They are "dumb"

because at this time no one is praying there except the kneeling sculptured figures. (243.) 70. amort: as if dead.

71. her lambs unshorn: When the mass was celebrated on St. Agnes' Day, two lambs were offered to the church, and later their wool was spun and woven by the nuns. The lamb, symbolic of youth and innocence, was traditionally associated with the virgin St. Agnes (Latin agnus, lamb). See lines 115-117.

(244.) 126. mickle: much (Scotch). (245.) 171. Merlin paid his demon etc.: The magician Merlin, according to one legend, was the offspring of demons, and was in the end overpowered by means of one of his own spells.

173. cates: choice viands.

174. tambour-frame: double hoops

to hold embroidery.

198. frayed: frightened.

218. gules: red, in heraldry. See line 216.

(246.) 239-243. Flown, like a thought etc. Madeline's soul in sleep is lightly escaped, and quietly harbored, from the emotional stress of everyday life (lines 239-240). It is concealed from malign powers, like a thing religiously precious; and withdrawn from fostering powers, like a thing of complete and self-contained beauty (lines 241-243).

241. Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray: i.e., like a Christian mass-book in a building, or region, where swarthy pagans are worshipping. "Clasped"

may mean "shut," which is the word Keats originally used here; or "tightly grasped," i.e., in the protecting hand of a Christian. (246.) 257. drowsy Morphean amulet: a charm to keep her asleep. - Morpheus was the god of dreams.

271. These delicates he heaped etc.: In Keats's conception of the old superstition, the lover, in the girl's vision, would invite her to feast with him, thus ending her fast. See stanzas VI, XX.

277. eremite: hermit, devotee. (247.) 324. St. Agnes' moon hath set: The suggestion is that the charm of the night is declining. The rising storm was prepared for in lines 127, 253. (248.) 344. seeming: look.

ON FAME

Compare the attitude toward Fame in the sonnet "When I have Fears" (page 238).

2. temperate blood: Cf. Shakespeare's "blood and judgment . . . well commingled." Indeed, the central theme of this sonnet recalls the well known passage in "Hamlet" (III, ii, 70 ff.).

8. her pure grot: See note to page 237, line 272, above.

13-14. Why then should man

a fierce miscreed: Cf.: "For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose or forfeit his own self?" (Luke IX, 25). In summing up his poetic thought, Keats finely hints a parallel with religious thought, in the words "world," "grace," "salvation," "miscreed."

ODE TO PSYCHE

This "latest born and loveliest vision far" (line 24) of all the Olympian mythology was, says Keats in a letter, a late creation of the ancient mind: "Psyche was not embodied as a goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the Goddess was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervor - and perhaps never thought of in the old religion I am more orthodox than to let a heathen Goddess be so neglected." According to Apuleius, Psyche is a beautiful princess who incurs the jealousy of Venus. Cupid, commanded by Venus to inspire an unworthy love in Psyche, himself falls victim to her charm and, conveying her to a delightful spot by night, himself unseen and unknown, embraces her until the dawn. The story goes on to tell (though Keats barely alludes to the later events) how the sisters of Psyche, jealous of her, persuaded her that she had been embracing a monster, and how Psyche, seeking to know the truth, held a lamp over her sleeping lover, the loveliest of the gods, and by mischance allowed a drop of hot oil to fall upon his shoulder. Cupid awoke and fled. Her happiness at an end, Psyche

henceforth wandered miserably in search of her lover and was condemned to hard labors by Venus labors that would have broken her had not Cupid, invisibly pursuing her fortunes, given her comfort and aid. At length, through the power of Cupid, the hatred of Venus was appeased, and Psyche, reunited with her divine lover, became immortal. Psyche, whose name is Greek for "soul," is commonly imagined with the wings of a butterfly as an emblem of immortality.

"In this pleasing story Psyche evidently represents the human soul, which is purified by passions and misfortunes, and thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness" (Smith's Classical Dictionary, ed. Blakeney). Of this spiritual implication in the tale Keats does not avail himself.

Along with Keats's Ode, one might advisedly read William Morris's rendering of the tale in "The Earthly Paradise," and also Robert Bridges' "Eros and Psyche," perhaps his best work.

(250.) 14. budded Tyrian: buds of Tyrian purple.

20. At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: when, upon awakening, the light of love would rise tenderly again in their

27. Vesper, amorous glowworm: Venus as the evening.star.

41. lucent fans: translucent wings. "Lucent" is another Keatsian favorite; cf. "lucent syrops" in "The Eve of St. Agnes," line 267 (page 246).

42. the faint Olympians: the Greek gods, now faded, who inhabited Mount Olympus.

57. moss-lain dryads: tree-nymphs lying in the moss at the foot of their trees which are here the poet's “branchèd thoughts" (line 52). — In the "Hymn to Pan," lines 236-237 (page 236), the dryads, or hamadryads, are gracefully embodied in their trees.

(251.) 61. stars without a name: star-like flowers unknown in the world (grown by "the gardener Fancy," line 62).

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

The urn is "a composite conjured up instinctively in his mind out of several such known to him in reality or from engravings" (Sidney Colvin, John Keats, 1917, page 416). Through this imaginary object, the poet conveys to us his sense of the clear, quiet power of beauty, persisting above the incessant shift and decay of “all breathing human passion" - beauty in art and the spirit transcending the beauties of actual life. Observe how this theme is prepared in the scene of stanza 1; developed with rising ecstasy, in stanzas II and III, from two particular features of that scene; serenely echoed in the new scene of stanza IV; and lifted, finally, into the region of quiet thought in stanza v. (251.) 3. Sylvan historian: explained by line 5.

6. In Tempe or the dales of Arcady: Tempe, a lovely valley in Thessaly, and Arcady (Arcadia), a picturesque and untroubled region in the Peloponnesus, became synonymous with ideal natural beauty and idyllic quiet and contentment. 13. sensual:

senses; sensuous.

pertaining to the

41. brede: braid, embroidery.

44. tease us out of thought: Cf. "Epistle to Reynolds," line 77 (page 238). (252.) 45. cold pastoral: Notice how this image suits the present stanza, as “sylvan historian" suits stanza I.

ODE ON MELANCHOLY

It

The mood of this swift little ode will not be fully grasped by a reader who misses the half-smile on the lips of the author. It is clearest in lines 18-20. lurks in the heaped-up adjurations of stanza I; and, perhaps, in the extraordinary image of lines 27-28.

1. Lethe: The Byronic attitude on this subject is here reversed; see note to page 171, line 29 (page 682, above).

2. tight-rooted: i.e., SO as to squeeze out the poisonous juice.

4. Proserpine: See note to page 241, line 81, above.

5. yew-berries: The yew grows commonly in English graveyards.

(252.) 6-7. Nor let mournful Psyche: Do not make mournful insects the symbols of your soul. For "Psyche," see the introductory note on Keats's ode to her, above.

9-10. For shade -- the soul: By deepening your gloom into numbness, you will prevent your spirit from becoming sorrowfully alert to external beauty (as in the next stanza).

15-20. Then glut thy sorrows etc.: Expend your mournful mood upon the transitoriness of the things you love, thus sharpening your appreciation of their loveliness. See the preceding note.

21. She: Melancholy (see line 26). - The thought of this stanza is, that the true and divine kind of melancholy arises from the transience of earthly beauty and joy, and can be deeply shared only by him who is capable of keen delight in life (lines 27-28). Keats throws it into contrast with the selfish and morbid kind of melancholy shown in stanza I.

yond tomorrow: See "Fancy," lines 11-12 (page 241), and the note (page 698).

32-33. Not charioted by Bacchus wings of Poesy: Leopards or panthers drew the chariot of the god of wine. This passage reverses the idea of lines 15-16; see the note to line 16, above. The intoxication of stanzas I and II has now given place to a quieter mood. In stanzas IV to VI the poet is hushed by the nearer presence, in imagination, of the "fullthroated" song and the "embalmèd darkness." 51. for: although, seeing that. It is followed by the correlative "Now" in line 55. 66. Ruth: See "Ruth," Chapter II. (254.) 69-70. Charmed magic casements faery lands forlorn: The magical world of medieval romance opens here to the nightingale's song; the listeners at the windows, however, are human beings. Compare Wordsworth's "To a Highland Girl," lines 15-16 (page 35), noting just what elements the two passages have in

This ode, except for line 23, omits the cause of sorrow so prominent in the three preceding odes. Its serener and rounder tone is aided by the additional verse (the tenth) in each stanza.

7. gourd: used in its older sense, as comprising melons, pumpkins, and the like. 12. store: abundance. In this stanza the four graceful attitudes of Autumn recall the figures on the "Grecian Urn" (page 251), but are more definitely sculptured. They represent four practical labors of the season.

25-26. While barred clouds with rosy hue: On September 22 Keats wrote to a friend: "I never liked stubble

fields so much as now, - ay, better than the chilly green of the Spring. Somehow, a stubble plain looks warm, in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it."

(254.) 28. river sallows: willows along the river.

30. hilly bourn: the hilly region bounding the level scene just described; "bourn" means "boundary.". Sheep still feed on the hills near Winchester where this poem was written.

"At first he thought of the poem to be written as a 'romance': but under the influence of 'Paradise Lost,' and no doubt also considering the height and vastness of the subject, his plan changed to that of a blank verse epic in ten books. His purpose was to sing the Titanomachia, or warfare of the earlier Titanic dynasty with the later Olympian dynasty of the Greek gods; and in particular one episode of that warfare, the dethronement of the sun-god Hyperion and the assumption of his kingdom by Apollo" (Colvin). Keats's poem, though never finished, was thus conceived as perhaps the most ambitious of the many poetic revivals of the Titan legend. these other revivals, see the note to Byron's "Prometheus," page 678, above, and the note to Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," page 686, above. It will be observed that Prometheus, a character ill suited to convey Keats's prevailing ideas, does not appear at all in "Hyperion." Not proud suffering, or stoical endurance, or warm sympathy was to be the keynote of the poem, but the sense of beauty:

On

for 'tis the eternal law

That first in beauty should be first in might"

(Book Second, lines 228-229). The supremacy of the Olympians is the supremacy of a fuller beauty.

At

The material that Keats used in writing the poem was indeed meagre - chiefly such secondary sources as classical dictionaries. But he brooded long over his theme, till it was vital and luminous in his mind; and as it grew there, it took on something of the spirit of his master Milton, something of the classical restraint and serenity. the same time, it is plain that Keats remained a child of his own age: less luxuriant than in his early work, he is still far from the classical simplicity, still rich and complex and modern; and his ethical and spiritual imagination, while increasingly profound, rarely suggests the Miltonic grasp and the classical certitude. Becoming himself aware of incertitude in his epic purpose and style, Keats a year later attempted, with powers weakened by illness, a reconstruction of "Hyperion" in a more romantic and personal mode, as "The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream." This fragment, which should be compared with Book First of the present poem, is deeply tinged with the thought of death, and has some fresh and powerful passages.

BOOK FIRST

At the beginning, Keats presents the Titans just after they have been overthrown, as Milton at the beginning of his epic presents Satan and his angel cohorts after their momentous defeat. "They have been dethroned from power, Saturn is an exile hiding in the deep glens, but their ruin is still incomplete; Hyperion still is lord in the sun, and the others are at liberty to gather for a great council" (Woodberry, The Torch, 1905, page 92; the whole passage, 92-102, is worth reading).

(255.) 13. naiad: See note to page 237, line 272, above.

30. Ixion's wheel: The gigantic strength of Thea, wife of Hyperion (she is the "one" of line 23), is suggested by this