ee 273 241. Where swart Paynims pray. Clasped like a missal in a land of Pagans: that is to say, where Christian prayer-books must not be seen, and are, therefore, doubly cherished for the danger." LEIGH HUNT. 274 250. Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness. To me this is one of the numerous great lines in the poem. Without being able clearly to define how or why, the reader feels himself seized by the throat, as it were, with a sense of being alone in a wide, breathless desert, where nothing of evil is visible, but where some awful and almost supernatural stillness is thrillingly informed with a fear too supreme for expression or comprehension. The suggestiveness of the line is all but worthy of Shakespeare. 274 262. "It is, apparently, as a poetical contrast to the fasting which was generally accepted as the due method by which a maiden was to prepare herself for the Vision, that the gorgeous supper-picture of st. xxx was introduced. Keats, who was Leigh Hunt's guest at the time this volume appeared, read aloud the passage to Hunt, with manifest pleasure in his work the sole instance I can recall where the poet-modest in proportion to his greatness-yielded even to so innocent an impulse of vanity." - PALGRAVE. 275 289–297. It was a pretty fancy thus to connect his own poem, La Belle Dame sans Merci, with a forgotten Provençal air. 278 360. Carpets. Of course an error, as carpets were not in use at the time indicated by the rest of the poem. Forman notes that in The King's Tragedy Dante Gabriel Rossetti avoids such an anachronism: "The night-wind wailed round the empty room And the rushes shook on the floor." The point is, however, one of no great importance. Leigh Hunt's closing words upon this poem may not inaptly close these notes: "Here endeth the young and divine poet, but not the delight and gratitude of his readers; for, as he sings elsewhere, — A thing of beauty is a joy forever." As from the darkening gloom a silver dove Bards of Passion and. of Mirth. Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art Deep in the shady sadness of a vale PAGE 60 47 67 13 63 191 How many bards gild the lapses of time In a drear-nighted December . I stood tip-toe upon a little hill It keeps eternal whisperings around 242 56 59 48 57 52 46 18 61 57 25 Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there . Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung PAGE 6 50 58 53 8 265 62 15 Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb 62 What is more gentle than a wind in summer 219 |