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. '_grene 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.

l. 62. _burden._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 503.

NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN'.

In a letter written to Reynolds from Winchester, in September, 1819,
Keats says: 'How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A
temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste
weather--Dian skies--I never liked stubble-fields so much as now--Aye
better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field
looks warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me
so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it.' What he composed
was the Ode _To Autumn_.

PAGE 137. ll. 1 seq. The extraordinary concentration and richness of
this description reminds us of Keats's advice to Shelley--'Load every
rift of your subject with ore.' The whole poem seems to be painted in
tints of red, brown, and gold.

PAGE 138. ll. 12 seq. From the picture of an autumn day we proceed to
the characteristic sights and occupations of autumn, personified in the
spirit of the season.

l. 18. _swath_, the width of the sweep of the scythe.

ll. 23 seq. Now the sounds of autumn are added to complete the
impression.

ll. 25-6. Compare letter quoted above.

PAGE 139. l. 28. _sallows_, trees or low shrubs of the willowy kind.

ll. 28-9. _borne . . . dies._ Notice how the cadence of the line fits
the sense. It seems to rise and fall and rise and fall again.

NOTES ON ODE ON MELANCHOLY.

PAGE 140. l. 1. _Lethe._ See _Lamia_, i. 81, note.

l. 2. _Wolf's-bane_, aconite or hellebore--a poisonous plant.

l. 4. _nightshade_, a deadly poison.

_ruby . . . Prose