l. [416]. Sweet Basil, a fragrant aromatic plant.
ll. [417-20]. The repetition makes us feel the monotony of her days and nights of grief.
[Page 76]. l. [432]. leafits, leaflets, little leaves. An old botanical term, but obsolete in Keats's time. Coleridge uses it in l. 65 of 'The Nightingale' in Lyrical Ballads. In later editions he altered it to 'leaflets'.
l. [436]. Lethean, in Hades, the dark underworld of the dead. Compare the conception of melancholy in the [Ode on Melancholy], where it is said to neighbour joy. Contrast Stanza [lxi].
l. [439]. cypress, dark trees which in Italy are always planted in cemeteries. They stand by Keats's own grave.
[Page 77]. l. [442]. Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy.
l. [451]. Baälites of pelf, worshippers of ill-gotten gains.
l. [453]. elf, man. The word is used in this sense by Spenser in The Faerie Queene.
[Page 78]. l. [467]. chapel-shrift, confession. Cf. l. [64].
ll. [469-72]. And when . . . hair. The pathos of this picture is intensified by its suggestions of the wife- and mother-hood which Isabel can now never know. Cf. st. [xlvii], where the idea is still more beautifully suggested.
