l. [9]. fleeces, the leaves of the forest, cut from them by the wind as the wool is shorn from the sheep's back.
[Page 134]. l. [13]. ivory shrill, the shrill sound of the ivory horn.
ll. [15-18]. Keats imagines some man who has not heard the laugh hearing with bewilderment its echo in the depths of the forest.
l. [21]. seven stars, Charles's Wain or the Big Bear.
l. [22]. polar ray, the light of the Pole, or North, star.
l. [30]. pasture Trent, the fields about the Trent, the river of Nottingham, which runs by Sherwood forest.
[Page 135]. l. [33]. morris. A dance in costume which, in the Tudor period, formed a part of every village festivity. It was generally danced by five men and a boy in girl's dress, who represented Maid Marian. Later it came to be associated with the May games, and other characters of the Robin Hood epic were introduced. It was abolished, with other village gaieties, by the Puritans, and though at the Restoration it was revived it never regained its former importance.
l. [34]. Gamelyn. The hero of a tale (The Tale of Gamelyn) attributed to Chaucer, and given in some MSS. as The Cook's Tale in The Canterbury Tales. The story of Orlando's ill-usage, prowess, and banishment, in As You Like It, Shakespeare derived from this source, and Keats is thinking of the merry life of the hero amongst the outlaws.
l. [36]. 'grenè shawe,' green wood.
[Page 136]. l. [53]. Lincoln green. In the Middle Ages Lincoln was very famous for dyeing green cloth, and this green cloth was the characteristic garb of the forester and outlaw.