NOTES TO THE POEMS
1. 13. Seer : a man with second sight, or power to see
into the future.
1. 18. Roslin: a castle, now in ruins, on the river North
Esk, a few miles south of Edinburgh. It was founded
about 1450 by Sir William St. Glair (Sinclair), baron
of Roslin and Earl of Orkney.
LSI. The ring they ride : to charge on horseback past
a suspended ring and try to carry it off on the point of
a lance.
1. 23. Sire : father.
P. 8, 1. 3. Dryderfs groves : an estate a mile north of Roslin.
1. 4. Hawthornden : the glen that runs north from Roslin
Castle. Its steep sides, between which flows the Esk,
are dotted with caves.
1. 5. Chapel proud: beside the ruins of Roslin Castle,
stands the chapel. It contains a famous carved
pillar. Cf. 1. ii.
1. 8. Panoply : complete armour.
1. 10. Sacristy : the apartment where vestments, sacred
books, etc., were kept.
Pale : rail, boundary.
1. 13. Pinnet: pinnacle.
1. 22. With candle, book, and knell: regularly—a common
formula.
Proud Maisie.
P. 8, 1. 25. Maisie : Mary.
P. 9, 1. 3. Braw : handsome.
Bishop Hatto.
Robert Sou they (1774-1843) belongs, with Wordsworth
and Coleridge, to the group known as the " Lake
Poets." He was a greater scholar than poet; and so
voluminous and detailed a writer that the very wealth
of his information stifles his ideas. Hence only his
slighter works now survive—his " Life of Nelson'"
(1813) and such short poems as " The Inchcape Rock "
and i(After Blenheim."
The story of this poem is a legend of an island in
the Rhine, on which stands the Mouse Tower, and
which is not far from Bingen.
La Belle Dame sans Merci.
John Keats (1795-1821) was born in London and
apprenticed to a surgeon. He was a friend of Shelley
and Leigh Hunt. His first long poem, " Endymion "
181