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NOTES ON POEMS
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36. ll. 29, 30. But ev'ry smile, etc.] W. W. writes: 'These two lines are very beautiful. The rest of the poem is hardly above mediocrity, but two such lines do not recompense us for a mass of base matter.'
l. 33. too many] to many 1646.
37. Farewell to Love.
W. W.'s note is: 'This ode is inferior to none of his writings for nature and simplicity, but it partakes of all their faults.'
l. 1. Well, shadow'd] Well-shadow'd early edd.
ll.11-15. As he, etc.] Cf. Donne's famous song: 'Go and catch a falling star'; and his Epithalamion for Lord Somerset, 1613, stanza 10: 'As he that sees a star fall, runs apace, And finds a jelly in the place.' Mr. Chambers, in his ed. of Donne (i. 221, 222), cites parallels. For superstitions regarding the origin of star-jelly or witches' butter (Nostoc commune), see Brand, Pop. Antt., iii. 404, 405.
ll. 26-30. See Burton, Anat. Mel., iii., sect. 2, memb. 5, subs. iii. (ed. Shilleto, 1896, iii. 245), for similar methods of curing love by imagination, especially his quotation from Chrysostom.
38. l. 31. gum] Gun 1646, 1648.
l. 33. hair, 't] heart, old edd.; hair, Hazlitt. The right reading is obvious.
l. 35. the hay] See Sir John Davies, Orchestra, 1594, l. 64: 'He taught them Rounds and winding Heyes to tread'; Love's Labour's Lost, V., i. 161, with H. C. Hart's note in Arden ed., 1906; and the 'report' song 'Shall we go dance the hay?' in England's Helicon, 1600 (ed. Bullen, 1899, p. 243).
l. 41. methinks] me think 1658.
l. 44. Checks] Hazlitt; Check, early edd. The metaphor is from hawking: see Twelfth Night, II., v. 125; III., i. 71.
ll. 46, 47. They . . . These] It seems more natural to read These . . . They, and suppose the usual reading to be an accidental transposition of the earlier editors.
45. The Invocation.
l. 1. Cf. The Expostulation, below: 'Ye juster deities, That pity lovers' miseries.'