[270] 283 From Poetry for Children (1809), by Charles and Mary Lamb. This tender and original little piece seems clearly to reveal the work of that noble-minded and afflicted sister, who was at once the happiness, the misery, and the life-long blessing of her equally noble-minded brother.
[278] 289 This poem has an exaltation and a glory, joined with an exquisiteness of expression, which place it in the highest rank among the many masterpieces of its illustrious Author.
[289] 300 interlunar swoon: interval of the moon's invisibility.
[294] 304 Calpe: Gibraltar. Lofoden: the Maelstrom whirlpool off the N.W. coast of Norway.
[295] 305 This lovely poem refers here and there to a ballad by Hamilton on the subject better treated in 163 and 164.
[307] 315 Arcturi: seemingly used for northern stars. And wild roses, &c. Our language has perhaps no line modulated with more subtle sweetness.
[308] 316 Coleridge describes this poem as the fragment of a dream-vision,—perhaps, an opium-dream?—which composed itself in his mind when fallen asleep after reading a few lines about 'the Khan Kubla' in Purchas' Pilgrimage.
[312] 318 Ceres' daughter: Proserpine. God of Torment: Pluto.
[320] 321 The leading idea of this beautiful description of a day's landscape in Italy appears to be—On the voyage of life are many moments of pleasure, given by the sight of Nature, who has power to heal even the worldliness and the uncharity of man.
[321] — l. 23 Amphitrite was daughter to Ocean.