I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing. . ..
NOTES ON ISABELLA.
Metre. The ottava rima of the Italians, the natural outcome of Keats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by Chaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in The Monks and the Giants and by Byron in Don Juan. Compare Keats's use of the form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he avoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but inappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.
[Page 49]. l. [2]. palmer, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine where, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a woman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.
[Page 50]. l. [21]. constant as her vespers, as often as she said her evening-prayers.
[Page 51]. l. [34]. within . . . domain, where it should, naturally, have been rosy.
[Page 52]. l. [46]. Fever'd . . . bridge. Made his sense of her worth more passionate.
ll. [51-2]. wed To every symbol. Able to read every sign.
[Page 53]. l. [62]. fear, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e.g. 'Fear boys with bugs,' Taming of the Shrew, i. ii. 211.