This poem,
although
so much lighter in spirit, bears a certain relation
in thought to Keats's other odes.
in thought to Keats's other odes.
Keats
PAGE 120. l. 55. _fledge . . . steep. _ Probably a recollection of what
he had seen in the Lakes, for on June 29, 1818, he writes to Tom from
Keswick of a waterfall which 'oozes out from a cleft in perpendicular
Rocks, all fledged with Ash and other beautiful trees'.
l. 57. _Dryads. _ Cf. _Lamia_, l. 5, note.
INTRODUCTION TO FANCY.
This poem, although so much lighter in spirit, bears a certain relation
in thought to Keats's other odes. In the _Nightingale_ the tragedy of
this life made him long to escape, on the wings of imagination, to the
ideal world of beauty symbolized by the song of the bird. Here finding
all real things, even the most beautiful, pall upon him, he extols the
fancy, which can escape from reality and is not tied by place or season
in its search for new joys. This is, of course, only a passing mood, as
the extempore character of the poetry indicates. We see more of settled
conviction in the deeply-meditative _Ode to Autumn_, where he finds the
ideal in the rich and ever-changing real.
This poem is written in the four-accent metre employed by Milton in
_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and we can often detect a similarity of
cadence, and a resemblance in the scenes imagined.
NOTES ON FANCY.
PAGE 123. l. 16. _ingle_, chimney-nook.
PAGE 126. l. 81. _Ceres' daughter_, Proserpina. Cf.
