Keats was introduced to Spenser by Cowden Clarke. Charles Brown reported, ‘It was the “Faery Queen” that awakened his genius. In Spenser’s fairy land he was enchanted… till, enamoured of the stanza, he attempted to imitate it, and succeeded’ (KC II p. 55). However, the poem owes more to eighteenth-century Spenserians like Thomson, Beattie, and Mary Tighe, than to Spenser himself. On the versification, see Bate (1945), pp. 189–91.

22 teen grief (Spenser).

27 cerulean azure.

ON PEACE

Written in spring 1814 to celebrate the Peace of Paris. Published N&Q, 4 February 1905. This irregular Shakespearian sonnet echoes the tone of the editorials written for the Examiner by Leigh Hunt, who hoped that the Peace might bring constitutional monarchy to Europe. On Hunt, see Written on the Day that Mr Leigh Hunt left Prison and headnote (p. 559).

9 With England’s happiness proclaim Europa’s liberty compare with the inscription on the peace decorations on Somerset House, ‘Europa Instaurata, Aupice Britanniae / Tyrannide Subversa, Vindice Libertatis’ (‘Europe restored, tyranny overthrown under the leadership of Britain, by the defender of liberty’).

14 horrors] Forman (1883); honors MSS, G. Allott silently rejects the emendation, but none of the MSS is in Keats’s hand, while ‘horrors’ makes more obvious sense, and fits in with imagery of imprisonment in 1.12. Although Keats does use ‘honours’ in this sense (‘Leaps to the honours of a tournament’, Specimen of an Induction 28), ‘horrors’ is more common in his work, the most famous example being, ‘But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve’ (Hyperion I, 175); see also Endymion IV, 468, 618, Hyperion I, 233, and Otho the Great V.2. 19, etc.

‘FILL FOR ME A BRIMMING BOWL’

Written August 1814 after ‘obtaining a casual sight’ of a lady at Vauxhall, on whom Keats later wrote ‘When I have fears…’ and To – (‘Time’s sea…’). Published N&Q, 4 February 1905. The text is based on the autograph MS in the Morgan Library, which marks the stanza divisions, unlike W3, Garrod (OSA), or Allott. M. A. E. Steele reproduces the MS in KSJ, I (1952), pp. 57–63, and thinks the poem was written at the same time as To Emma and ‘O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell’. Texts, pp. 95–8, argues for Mary Frogley’s text.

6] That fills the mind with fond desiring W2–3, G. As Allott suggests, probably a watered down version to suit the tastes of Mary Frogley (see p. 563).

9 breast] heart W2–3, G.

13 ’Tis] In W2–3, G.

25 a] the G, Allott.

TO LORD BYRON

Published 1848. Written December 1814; sometimes said to have been written after his grandmother’s death, but ll. 6–7 refer not to Keats’s ‘griefs’, but Byron’s.

9 a golden ] W2, Allott; the golden, 1848, G.

‘AS FROM THE DARKENING GLOOM A SILVER DOVE’

Written December 1814. Published 1876. According to Woodhouse ‘he said he had written it on the death of his grandmother, about five days after; but he had never told anyone, not even his brother, the occasion on which it was written; he said he was tenderly attached to her’ (W3). Keats’s grandmother was buried 19 December.

7 bedight adorned (Spenser).

9 quire archaic spelling of ‘choir’ (though still a possible spelling in Keats’s time).

13 pleasures] W1, W3, Allott; pleasure’s W2, 1876, G.

‘CAN DEATH BE SLEEP, WHEN LIFE IS BUT A DREAM’

Written 1814.