Published 1848.

10 Sidney a reference probably to Algernon Sidney (for whom see Written on 29 May 5n, p. 560), though possibly to Sir Philip Sidney. Keats refers to ‘the two Sidneys’ in his journal-letter to George and Georgiana Keats, October 1818 (L I, p. 397). A little earlier, he remarks, ‘We have no Milton, no Algernon Sidney’.

12 the wing] W 1–3, G; wing 1848, Garrod (OSA). Compare this line with Ode to a Nightingale 33, ‘on the viewless wings of Poesy’.

14 spells bewitches, binds as with a spell.

TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME SOME ROSES

Written 29 June 1816. G records that it is so dated in Tom Keats’s transcript, and has the title, To Charles Wells on receiving a bunch of roses. The roses settled a disagreement between Wells and Keats. Wells (1800–79) was a minor writer and friend of Tom. Published 1817.

3 lush see ‘I stood tip-toe…’ 31n (p. 573).

6 musk-rose a favourite flower in Keats’s poetry. It is a rambling rose, with fragrant white flowers. But there are also literary sources – Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II. 1. 252, ‘With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine’, and Milton, Lycidas 146, ‘The Musk-rose, and the well-attir’d Woodbine’. Keats’s most notable reference is in Ode to a Nightingale 49, ‘The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine…’

8 Titania the fairy queen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

12 spelled bewitched, bound as with a spell.

TO MY BROTHER GEORGE (‘Many the wonders I this day have seen’)

Written Margate, August 1816. Published 1817. This sonnet, like the following poem, was written to George from Margate, where Keats had gone for a holiday after taking his examinations at the Apothecaries Hall on 25 July. The holiday was an attempt to give himself to writing for a while: Keats could not practise as a surgeon or apothecary until he came of age on 31 October.

3 laurelled peers repeated from Ode to Apollo 20.

TO MY BROTHER GEORGE (‘Full many a dreary hour have I passed’)

Written Margate, August 1816. Published 1817. For the occasion, see note to preceding sonnet. This is the second of Keats’s three verse epistles, the first being To George Felton Mathew, and the third To Charles Cowden Clarke. Bate (1963), pp. 70–72, regards this poem as important in Keats’s early development, and shows him facing his central problem, that of the function and status of poetry. Clarke’s notions on the ‘visions’ of poetry and Hunt’s example still dominate however.

12 golden lyre Apollo’s lyre, symbol of poetic achievement. For other references, see Ode to Apollo 2, Endymion IV, 702, Hyperion III, 63.

19 bay the poet’s (and Apollo’s) laurel wreath.

24 Libertas Leigh Hunt (see Specimen of an Induction 61n, p. 541).

38 seraph angel of the highest of the nine orders, but Keats’s source is probably literary rather than biblical (see To George Felton Mathew 24n, p. 563).

54 poetic lore compare To my Brothers 6–7.

66 spell bewitch, bind as with a spell.

74 alarum tri-syllabic.

121 you Woodhouse noted that To [Mary Frogley], To Georgiana Augusta Wylie, and ‘perhaps’ ‘O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell’, ‘were written for his brother’, and that this poem and the two sonnets, To my Brother George and To my Brothers, were written to him: see Woodhouse (1817), pp. 146–7.

123–42 Isabella Towers’s copy of 1817 notes, ‘Written on the cliff at Margate’ (G).

124 clift a by-form of ‘cliff’ due to a confusion with ‘ceft’ (fissure). ‘Exceedingly common in 16–18th centuries, and used by some writers in the 19th century’, including Shelley (OED).