At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, piping hot! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! 915 Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero, "And moreover," (the Sonnet goes rhyming,)" the skirts of Saint Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached." Noon strikes, here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart 920 With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life. But bless you, it's dear - it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate 925 It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles; One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, 930 And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals : Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! NOTES LORD BYRON 41. On one of these columns Byron's name is carved. [See Naef's Guide quoted by Mr. E. H. Coleridge.] 42. The large, white-walled Château de Chillon stands on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, between the Alps and the entrances of the Rhone. [See Naef.] 415. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, 1812. 512. Pricking on. Cf. Spenser's Faerie Queene, Canto I, 1. 1. This may be one of the many reminiscences of older poetry with which Byron's remarkable memory was stored. 257. Two Voices. The voice of the sea is that of England, the voice of the mountain is of Switzerland, which was usurped, in 1800, by the French, under Napoleon. XI. Venice was taken by the French in 1797. 351. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 37. 628. The family name of the Marquis of Queensberry is Douglas. 757. Cf. previous lines 99, 100. XXIX. This poem contains many quotations from a beautiful ballad by Hamilton of Bangour (1704-1754) called The Braes of Yarrow. Certain of the passages reproduced will be found in the stanzas below. "Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass, Yellow on Yarrow's bank the gowan, Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowin'. "Flows Yarrow sweet? as sweet, as sweet flows Tweed, "Busk ye, then busk, my bonny, bonny bride; And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow." XXXVI. "Written soon after the death, by shipwreck, of Wordsworth's brother John." [Palgrave.] PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 310. Interlunar swoon is explained by Palgrave as the “interval of the moon's invisibility." 531. "Arcturus never sets; hence the ever blooming daisies are called Arcturi." [Alexander.] 772. The Maenads were the frenzied followers of Dionysus. 822. Mr. Palgrave has given an appropriate title to lines taken from Shelley's drama, Prometheus Unbound. 840. Stain. In the opinion of several editors, Shelley here meant "strain." 859. “Thoughts" depends upon “on” in the following line. JOHN KEATS 51. Keats has confused Cortez and Balboa. III. Palgrave has supplied a title "that the aim of the piece following may be grasped more clearly." V. "This beautiful sonnet was the last word of a youth in whom, if the fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England lost one of the most rarely gifted in the long roll of her poets." [Palgrave.] 158. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other “poets dead and gone” had frequented the Mermaid. ROBERT BROWNING I. These songs have to do with the uprising for King Charles I against Parliament, in 1640. IV. This poem has no historical basis. IX. One Word More was originally the final poem in the collection called Men and Women. 602. Grève. Sands left by the outgoing tide, near St. Malo. 686-689. This refers to statues and other memorials in the Louvre. 702. Archons. Magistrates. - Tettix. A golden cicada worn as an emblem. 704. The myrtle wreath was the badge of the messenger. 776. Fennel. "Fennel field, in Greek Marathon; and Pan meant when he gave Pheidippides the bunch of fennel to signify the place where the victory would be won." [Miss Porter and Miss Clarke.] |