of imperfect rhymes, even in his most musical
passages.

244. ~mortal mixture ... divine enchanting ravishment~. The words _mortal_
and _divine_ are in antithesis: comp. _Il Pens._ 91, 92, "The immortal
mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook." The lines
embody a compliment to the Lady Alice: read in this connection lines 555
and 564. 'Ravishment,' rapture (a cognate word) or ecstasy: comp. _Il
Pens._ 40, "Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes"; also l. 794.

246. ~Sure~, used adverbially: comp. line 493, and 'certain,' l. 266.

247. ~vocal~, used proleptically.

248. ~his~ = its: see note, l. 96. The pronoun refers to 'something holy.'

251. ~smoothing the raven down~. As the nightingale's song smooths the
rugged brow of Night (_Il Pens._ 58), so here the song of the lady
smooths the raven plumage of darkness. In classical mythology Night is a
winged goddess.

252. ~it~, _i.e._ darkness.

253. ~Circe ... Sirens three~. In the _Odyssey_ the Sirens are two in
number and have no connection with Circe. They lived on a rocky island
off the coast of Sicily and near the rock of Scylla (l. 257), and lured
sailors to destruction by the charm of their song. Circe was also a
sweet singer and had the power of enchanting men; hence the combined
allusion: see also Horace's _Epist._ i. 2, 23, _Sirenum voces, et Circes
pocula nosti_. Besides, the Sirens were daughters of the river-god
Achelous, and Circe had Naiads or fountain-nymphs among her maids.

254. ~flowery-kirtled Naiades~: fresh-water nymphs dressed in flowers, or
having their skirts decorated with flowers. A _kirtle_ is a gown; Skeat
suggests that it is a diminutive of _skirt_.

255. ~baleful~, injurious (A.S. _balu_, evil).

256. ~sung~. "The verbs _swim_, _begin_, _run_, _drink_, _shrink_, _sink_,
_ring_, _sing_, _spring_, have for their proper past tenses _swam_,
_began_, _ran_, etc., preserving the original _a_; but in older writers
(sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) and in colloquial English we find
forms with _u_, which have come from the passive participles." (Morris).
~take the prisoned soul~, _i.e._ would take the soul prisoner; 'prisoned'
being used proleptically.

257. ~lap it in Elysium~. _Lap_ is a form of wrap: comp. _L'Alleg._ 136,
"_Lap_ me in soft Lydian airs." Elysium: the abode of the spirits of the
blessed; comp. _L'Alleg._ 147, "heaped Elysian flowers." ~Scylla ...
Charybdis~. The former, a rival of Circe in the affections o