Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends

by John Keats

[69] Compare the Ode to Psyche:—

“Far, far around shall those dark-crested trees
Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep.”

[70] Wordsworth’s lines “To Joanna” seem to have been special favourites with Keats.

[71] Keats here repeats for his brother the Meg Merrilies piece contained in the preceding letter to Fanny.

[72] Reading doubtful.

[73] Here follows a sketch.

[74] The Swan and Two Necks, Lad Lane, London, seems to have been the coach office for Liverpool and the North-West; compare Lamb’s Letters (ed. Ainger), vol. i. p. 241.

[75] By Long Island Keats means, not of course the great chain of the Outer Hebrides so styled, but the little island of Luing, east of Scarba Sound. His account of the place from which he is writing, and its distance from Oban as specified in the paragraph added there next day, seem to identify it certainly as Kilmelfort.

[76] Cary’s translation.

[77] No place so named appears on any map: but at the foot of the Cruach-Doire-nan-Cuílean, off the road, is a house named Derrynaculan, and a few miles farther on, at the head of Loch Seridain, an ancient fortified site or Dun, with an inn on the road near by.