e Italians, the natural outcome of
Keats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by
Chaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in _The
Monks and the Giants_ and by Byron in _Don Juan_. Compare Keats's use of
the form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he
avoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but
inappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.

PAGE 49. l. 2. _palmer_, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine
where, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a
woman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.

PAGE 50. l. 21. _constant as her vespers_, as often as she said her
evening-prayers.

PAGE 51. l. 34. _within . . . domain_, where it should, naturally, have
been rosy.

PAGE 52. l. 46. _Fever'd . . . bridge._ Made his sense of her worth more
passionate.

ll. 51-2. _wed To every symbol._ Able to read every sign.

PAGE 53. l. 62. _fear_, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e.g. 'Fear
boys with bugs,' _Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 211.

l. 64. _shrive_, confess. As the pilgrim cannot be at peace till he has
confessed his sins and received absolution, so Lorenzo feels the
necessity of confessing his love.

PAGE 54. ll. 81-2. _before the dusk . . . veil._ A vivid picture of the
twilight time, after sunset, but before it is dark enough for the stars
to shine brightly.

ll. 83-4. The repetition of the same words helps us to feel the
unchanging nature of their devotion and joy in one another.

PAGE 55. l. 91. _in fee_, in payment for their trouble.

l. 95. _Theseus' spouse._ Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus after
having saved his life and left her home for him. _Odyssey_, xi. 321-5.

l. 99. _Dido._ Queen of Carthage, whom Aeneas, in his wanderings, wooed
and would have married, but the Gods bade him leave her.

_silent . . . undergrove._ When Aeneas saw Dido in Hades, amongst those
who had died for love, he spoke to her pityingly. But she answered him
not a word, turning from him into the grove to Lychaeus, her former
husband, who comforted her. Vergil, _Aeneid_, Bk. VI, l. 450 ff.

l. 103. _almsmen_, receivers of alms, since they take honey from the
flowers.

PAGE 56. l. 107. _swelt_, faint. Cf. Chaucer, _Troilus and Cressida_,
iii. 347.

l. 109. _proud-quiver'd_, proudly girt with quivers of arrows.

l. 112. _rich-ored driftings._ The sand of the river in which gold was
to be found.