Ancient Mariner, founded on a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend, Mr. Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention; but certain parts I myself suggested:for example, some crime was to be committed which should bring upon the old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of that crime, and his own wanderings. I had been reading in Shelvocke's Voyages a day or two before that while doubling Cape Horn they frequently saw albatrosses. Suppose,' said I, you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary Spirits of those regions take upon them to avenge the crime!' The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem. We began the composition together on that, to me, memorable evening. I furnished two or three lines at the beginning of the poem, in particular:

And listened like a three years' child; The Mariner had his will.'"

The poem was first printed in the 1798 edition of the Lyrical Ballads. Many archaisms, intended to make it resemble the popular ballads, and a few stanzas, were afterwards removed. The marginal gloss was added when the poem appeared in the Sybilline Leaves, 1817.

worth's marriage-in the Morning Post. Although Wordsworth's name did not appear in this version, it was in fact addressed to him. Later, after an estrangement between the two poets, Coleridge revised and enlarged the ode. The first form is printed in the Globe edition of Coleridge's works, p. 522.

433. 25. O Lady! In the earlier version, here and throughout the poem, O Edmund! under which pseudonym Coleridge addressed Wordsworth.

40. What can these avail. What can these beauties of nature avail? 435. 120. As Otway's self. Originally Edmund's self."

66

as

HARP OF THE NORTH

443. This is a sort of epilogue to The Lady of the Lake.

JOCK OF HAZELDEAN

444. The first stanza is traditional; see F. J. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v. 159, for the older John of Hazelgreen on which Scott modelled his

song.

BRIGNALL BANKS

From Rokeby.

COUNTY GUY

445. From Quentin Durward.

BONNY DUNDEE

From The Doom of Devorgoil. 1. Claver'se. John Graham of Claverhouse (1649?-1689), an ardent and successful partisan of Charles II, won the title "bloody Claver'se by his persecution of the Scottish Dissenters during the last years of Charles's reign. In 1688 he was created first Viscount Dundee by James II. After James's flight, Claverhouse maintained a royal army in Scotland, and won the battle of Killiecrankie in July, 1689, but died of a wound the night of the victory. The incident referred to in the poem took place March 18, 1688, when Claverhouse rode out of Edinburgh at the head of some fifty dragoons, having bolted the Convention that was to determine Scotland's attitude towards James II.

13. The Bow. Bow Street, Edinburgh. 14. Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow. Every old woman was scolding and wagging her head.

15. The young plants of grace they looked couthie and slee. The young men looked kindly and sly.

17. The Grassmarket.

An open square in the center of the city, formerly used for public executions. See The Heart of Midlothian, Chapter ii.

21. Cowls of Kilmarnock. The Presbyterian Whigs, who were all anti-Stuart. 22. Lang hafted gullies. Long handled knives.

23. Close-head. The entrance to a blind alley. (Engl. Dialect Dictionary.) 25. Castle rock. Edinburgh Castle stands on a high rock above the city. 27. Mons Meg and her marrows. "Mons Meg was a famous cannon of unusual size.

30. Montrose. James Graham (16121650), fifth Earl and first Marquis of Montrose, was Charles I's most successful lieutenant during the Civil War. He was captured and executed by the Earl of Argyle in 1650.

456. 703. The Niobe of nations. Niobe, all of whose children were slain by Apollo and Diana because of her pride, stands as a symbol of grief and suffering.

457. 732. When Brutus, etc. The reference is to the murder of Julius Cæsar by Brutus and the other conspirators. See North's translation of Plutarch, p. 91, this volume.

734. Tully. Marcus Tullius Cicero.

1252. I see before me the gladiator lie. Byron seems to have had in mind the statue of the "Dying Gaul," now known to have no connection, with gladiatorial combats.

459. 1648. I have loved thee, Ocean. Byron was a swimmer of extraordinary ability.

690. Sappho. The only woman among the world's great poets. She lived approximately 600 B. C.

692. Delos. A Greek island, the birthplace of Phoebus Apollo.

695. The Scian and the Teian muse. Homer and Anacreon, so called from their birthplaces, real or supposed, Scio and Teos, respectively.

701. Marathon. The battle of Marathon, fought in 490 B. C. between the Persians and the Greeks, resulted in an overwhelming victory for the latter. It took place on the plains of Marathon, overlooking the sea.

708. Salamis. In 480 B. C. the Greek fleet under Themistocles defeated the Persian fleet. The battle was fought in the strait between the island of Salamis and the mainland of Attica.

461. 730. Thermopylæ. The most famous battle at the pass of Thermopyla was the contest in 480 B. C. between Leonidas and three hundred Spartans, and the Persian army of Xerxes.

743. Pyrrhic dance. A martial dance. 744. Pyrrhic phalanx. Pyrrhus (318?272 B. C.), King of Epirus, achieved several military successes through his use of the closely massed phalanx.

747. You have the letters Cadmus gave. Cadmus, one of the world's culture heroes,' was supposed to have given the alphabet to men.

751. Anacreon's song... Polycrates. Anacreon, Greek eulogist of love and wine, lived at the court of Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos.

755. Tyrant of the Chersonese. Miltiades, who, as leader of the Greeks at Marathon, was "freedom's best and bravest friend."

762. Suli's rock and Parga's shore. The first a mountain district, the second a seaport, in Albania. Both were famous for their warlike inhabitants.

764. Doric. Spartan.

766. Heracleidan. Of Hercules.

779. Sunium's marbled steep. A ruined temple at Sunium, or Cape Colonna, served as a landmark for vessels approaching the southern extremity of Attica. 462. 813. Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle. Edmund Hoyle (16721769), whose Short Treatise on Whist was published in 1742, was long the unquestioned authority on the game. 815. The great Marlborough. by Archdeacon Coxe. William Coxe (1747-1828), archdeacon of Wiltshire, published his Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough in the years 1818 and 1819. Marlborough is, of course, Queen Anne's great general.

Life

819. An independent being. Probably a pun; during the latter part of his life Milton was a member of the religious sect known as Independents."

821. His life falling into Johnson's way. Dr. Johnson's life of Milton, in his Lives of the Poets, is unsympathetic.

826. Lord Bacon's bribes. These are facts; the stories concerning Cæsar, Shakespeare, etc., may be apocryphal. 828. Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes). Dr. James Currie (17561805) published an edition of Burns's works, with a memoir, in 1800.

833. Southey... Pantisocracy. Southey and Coleridge were the two leaders in an attempt, which came to naught, to found an ideal commonwealth on the banks of the Susquehanna River.

835. Wordsworth unexcised, unhired. In the year 1812 Wordsworth was appointed Distributor of Stamps for the county of Westmoreland. The office was worth £400 per year.

462. 838. The Morning Post.

Coleridge first became a regular contributor to the Post in December, 1799.

839. He and Southey . . . espoused two
partners. Coleridge and Southey married
Sarah and Edith Fricker, of Bristol.
842. Botany Bay. An English penal
settlement was established in 1787 at
Botany Bay, New South Wales.

847. The Excursion. See note on the dedication to Don Juan, line 25, above. 864. Ariosto. An Italian poet (14741533), author of the Orlando Furioso. 871. The épopée. The epic poem. 463. 876. His dear Waggoners."

Words

worth's poem The Waggoner, written in 1805, was published in 1819. The poem is minutely descriptive of the lake country that Wordsworth knew so well.

877. He wishes for "a boat." See the Prelude to Wordsworth's Peter Bell. 883. Charles's Wain. Charles's Wagon; the constellation usually known as the Great Bear.

945. O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things. The stanza is an adaptation of one of the Sapphic fragments.

961. When Nero perished. Nero committed suicide in 68 A. D., to save himself from execution following the Senate's proclamation of Galba as emperor. 975. We Cantabs. Students or graduates of Cambridge University.

984. Aristotle. Aristotle's Poetics is one of the world's most famous discussions of the principles of poetry.

CANTO IV

This canto, of which the greater part is here reprinted, recounts the culmination of the romance between Juan, hero of the epic, and Haidée, daughter of a wealthy pirate and slavedealer on the shores of whose island the sea had cast Juan, sole survivor of a shipwreck. Haidée finds him, loves him, and nurses him back to health. The episode of Haidée and Juan occupies cantos ii, iii, and iv. 464. 43. Pulci was sire. Luigi Pulci (14321487), Italian poet, author of a burlesque epic entitled Il Morgante Maggiore. 469. 456. The Simoom. A hot wind from the desert.

hand of the sculptor and the heart of the king.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

473. 21. Mænad. A priestess of Bacchus. 32. Baiæ's bay. Baiæ, near Naples, was a famous watering place during the Roman empire.

43. If I were, etc. The first stanza of the poem has to do chiefly with the effect of the West Wind on the leaves; the second, with its effect on the clouds; and the third, with its effect on the waves. In the first three lines of this stanza these three ideas are woven together.

THE INDIAN SERENADE

474. II. Champak. An Indian tree, somewhat like a magnolia.

THE CLOUD

475. 81. Cenotaph. A monument built in honor of a person who is buried in some other place.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND: ACT IV

479. I. This is the day, etc. Demogorgon's speech gives Shelley's idea of the reconstructed universe for which he was always longing.

ADONAIS

Shelley's elegy, reminiscent of Milton's Lycidas, was written in memory of John Keats, who died at Rome, Febru

ary 22, 1821.

12. Urania. The heavenly Muse, properly the patroness of Astronomy. 480. 30. The Sire of an immortal strain. John Milton.

55. That high Capital. Keats was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome. 481. 133. She pined away. Narcissus disdained the love of the nymph Echo; Echo died of grief.

482. 140. To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear. The youth Hyacinth, greatly beloved by Apollo, was turned into the flower that bears his name.

141. Nor to himself Narcissus. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a pool, and was turned into a flower. 151, 2. The curse of Cain Light on his head. On the head of the critic who, according to the belief of the times, killed Keats with his brutal reviews. 483. 238. The unpastured dragon. The world. 244 ff. The herded wolves, ravens,

.

vultures. Critics" to the conqueror's banner true," i. e., subservient to the political party in power. Keats's friendship with Leigh Hunt, a very advanced Liberal, brought many attacks upon him.

250. The Pythian of the age one arrow

sped. Byron, and his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

484. 264. The Pilgrim of Eternity. Byron. Shelley is thinking of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

268, 9. Ierne sent the sweetest lyrist,
etc. Ireland sent Tom Moore.
As a
matter of fact, neither Byron nor Moore
was particularly affected by the death of
Keats.

271. One frail Form. Shelley himself.
276. Actæon-like. Actæon, in punish-
ment for having seen Diana in the bath,
was turned into a stag and torn by his
own dogs.

307. What softer voice. Leigh Hunt. 485. 325. Live thou! The author of an exceptionally brutal attack on Keats in the Quarterly Review. Compare Byron's two stanzas beginning " Who killed John Keats?

343. Peace, peace! he is not dead. With the conception of immortality set forth in the remaining stanzas one should compare Lycidas, ll. 165-185.

486. 399. Chatterton. Cf. note to Wordsworth's Resolution and Independence, 1. 43, p. 407.

401. Sidney. Died at the age of thirty

496. The twenty-first of January is St. Agnes's Day; the evening of the twentieth is "the Eve of St. Agnes." The superstition around which the poem centers is made sufficiently clear in the course of the story. 498. 115. The holy loom, etc. On St. Agnes's day, during the celebration of the mass, two lambs might be offered to the church (cf. l. 71). The nuns afterwards spun and wove the wool.

499. 171. Since Merlin paid his Demon, etc. Merlin, the famous wizard and prophet of Arthurian romance, was the son of a demon, and became himself the victim of magic. See Tennyson's Merlin and

502. Keats planned to write an epic dealing with the overthrow of Saturn by Jupiter. When the poem was published in 1820, however, only two books and a fragment of a third had been written.

503. 23. There came one. Thea, sister of Hyperion.

30. Ixion's wheel. Ixion was chained for all eternity to a revolving wheel.

504. 147. The rebel three. Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto.

166. Hyperion. When the action of the poem commences, the victory of Jupiter is incomplete. Hyperion is still god of the

sun.

506. 246. Tellus. Goddess of the earth. 307. Cælus. God of the heavens.