Sonnet #85 is dense with word play! Plenty for me to gnaw on here.
Just a couple of thoughts for now.
Shakespeare Sonnet-a-Day
Sonnet #85
LXXXV.
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
Was this first line floating around in Keats' head when he wrote his
"Thou still unravished bride of quietness"
There's the obvious double use of still in both. In Shakespeare's
sonnet, it's both 'not moving' and the meaning related to a
particular time, such as 'it is still sunny'. In Keats' poem, still
is also a particular time, and also not moving, playing off of
quietness. I read both first lines and re-read them again because
their direction reverses, and the key to each for me is 'still'. Is
the bride yet unravished? Oh wait! Is she a statue-still bride, so
very quiet? Is the Muse ever held by social behavior, i.e. manners?
Hmm, is the Muse 'tongue-tied' and therefore still?
I took it to mean what I call the Wayward Muse... like in "She's not
there... she's gone.":
I am still in the bewilderness.
A mute passing notes to a blind man.