l. 62. _burden._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 503.
NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN'.
In a letter written to Reynolds from Winchester, in September, 1819, Keats says: 'How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather--Dian skies--I never liked stubble-fields so much as now--Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field 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.' What he composed was the Ode _To Autumn_.
PAGE 137. ll. 1 seq. The extraordinary concentration and richness of this description reminds us of Keats's advice to Shelley--'Load every rift of your subject with ore.' The whole poem seems to be painted in tints of red, brown, and gold.
PAGE 138. ll. 12 seq. From the picture of an autumn day we proceed to the characteristic sights and occupations of autumn, personified in the spirit of the season.
l. 18. _swath_, the width of the sweep of the scythe.
ll. 23 seq. Now the sounds of autumn are added to complete the impression.
ll. 25-6. Compare letter quoted above.
PAGE 139. l. 28. _sallows_, trees or low shrubs of the willowy kind.
ll. 28-9. _borne . . . dies._ Notice how the cadence of the line fits the sense. It seems to rise and fall and rise and fall again.
NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY.
PAGE 140. l. 1. _Lethe._ See _Lamia_, i. 81, note.
l. 2. _Wolf's-bane_, aconite or hellebore--a poisonous plant.
l. 4. _nightshade_, a deadly poison.
_ruby . . . Proserpine._ Cf. Swinburne's _Garden of Proserpine_.
_Proserpine._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 63, note.
l. 5. _yew-berries._ The yew, a dark funereal-looking tree, is constantly planted in churchyards.
l. 7. _your mournful Psyche._ See Introduction to the _Ode to Psyche_, p. 236.
PAGE 141. l. 12. _weeping cloud._ l. 14. _shroud._ Giving a touch of mystery and sadness to the otherwise light and tender picture.
l. 16. _on . . . sand-wave_, the iridescence sometimes seen on the ribbed sand left by the tide.
l. 21. _She_, i.e. Melancholy--now personified as a goddess. Compare this conception of melancholy with the passage in _Lamia_, i. 190-200. Cf. also Milton's personifications of Melancholy in _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_.
PAGE 142. l. 30. _cloudy_, mysteriously concealed, seen of few.
INTRODUCTION TO HYPERION.
This poem deals with the overthrow of the primaeval order of Gods by Jupiter, son of Saturn the old king. There are many versions of the fable in Greek mythology, and there are many sources from which it may have come to Keats. At school he is said to have known the classical dictionary by heart, but his inspiration is more likely to have been due to his later reading of the Elizabethan poets, and their translations of classic story. One thing is certain, that he did not confine himself to any one authority, nor did he consider it necessary to be circumscribed by authorities at all. He used, rather than followed, the Greek fable, dealing freely with it and giving it his own interpretation.
The situation when the poem opens is as follows:--Saturn, king of the gods, has been driven from Olympus down into a deep dell, by his son Jupiter, who has seized and used his father's weapon, the thunderbolt. A similar fate has overtaken nearly all his brethren, who are called by Keats Titans and Giants indiscriminately, though in Greek mythology the two races are quite distinct. These Titans are the children of Tellus and Coelus, the earth and sky, thus representing, as it were, the first birth of form and personality from formless nature. Before the separation of earth and sky, Chaos, a confusion of the elements of all things, had reigned supreme. One only of the Titans, Hyperion the sun-god, still keeps his kingdom, and he is about to be superseded by young Apollo, the god of light and song.
In the second book we hear Oceanus and Clymene his daughter tell how both were defeated not by battle or violence, but by the irresistible beauty of their dispossessors; and from this Oceanus deduces 'the eternal law, that first in beauty should be first in might'. He recalls the fact that Saturn himself was not the first ruler, but received his kingdom from his parents, the earth and sky, and he
