Select Poems of Thomas Gray by Thomas Gray (inspirational books to read txt) π
[Footnote 1: A claim has been put up for the churchyard of Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge, the great bell of St. Mary's serving for the "curfew." But Stoke-Pogis is more likely to have been the spot, if any individual locality were indicated. T
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And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste."
Cf. Thomson, Liberty, iii. 171:
26. The stubborn glebe. Cf. Gay, Fables, ii. 15:
Broke=broken, as often in poetry, especially in the Elizabethan writers. See Abbott, Shakes. Gr. 343.
27. Drive their team afield. Cf. Lycidas, 27: "We drove afield;" and Dryden, Virgil's Ecl. ii. 38: "With me to drive afield."
28. Their sturdy stroke. Cf. Spenser, Shep. Kal. Feb.:
"But to the roote bent his sturdy stroake,And made many wounds in the wast [wasted] Oake;"
and Dryden, Geo. iii. 639:
30. As Mitford remarks, obscure and poor make "a very imperfect rhyme;" and the same might be said of toil and smile.
33. Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from his friend West's Monody on Queen Caroline:
"Ah, me! what boots us all our boasted power,Our golden treasure, and our purple state;
They cannot ward the inevitable hour,
Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."
Hurd compares Cowley:
"Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power,Have their short flourishing hour;
And love to see themselves, and smile,
And joy in their pre-eminence a while:
Even so in the same land
Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand;
Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand."
35. Awaits. The reading of the ed. of 1768, as of the Pembroke (and probably the other) MS. Hour is the subject, not the object, of the verb.
36. Hayley, in the Life of Crashaw, Biographia Britannica, says that this line is "literally translated from the Latin prose of Bartholinus in his Danish Antiquities."
39. Fretted. The fret is, strictly, an ornament used in classical architecture, formed by small fillets intersecting each other at right angles. Parker (Glossary of Architecture) derives the word from the Latin fretum, a strait; and Hales from ferrum, iron, through the Italian ferrata, an iron grating. It is more likely (see Stratmann and Wb.) from the A. S. frætu, an ornament.
Cf. Hamlet, ii. 2:
and Cymbeline, ii. 4:
"The roof o' the chamberWith golden cherubins is fretted."
40. The pealing anthem. Cf. Il Penseroso, 161:
"There let the pealing organ blowTo the full-voiced quire below,
In service high, and anthem clear," etc.
41. Storied urn. Cf. Il Pens. 159: "storied windows richly dight." On animated bust, cf. Pope, Temple of Fame, 73: "Heroes in animated marble frown;" and Virgil, Γn. vi. 847: "spirantia aera."
43. Provoke. Mitford considers this use of the word "unusually bold, to say the least." It is simply the etymological meaning, to call forth (Latin, provocare). See Wb. Cf. Pope, Ode:
44. Dull cold ear. Cf. Shakes. Hen. VIII. iii. 2: "And sleep in dull, cold marble."
46. Pregnant with celestial fire. This phrase has been copied by Cowper in his Boadicea, which is said (see notes of "Globe" ed.) to have been written after reading Hume's History, in 1780:
"Such the bard's prophetic words,Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre."
47. Mitford quotes Ovid, Ep. v. 86:
48. Living lyre. Cf. Cowley:
and Pope, Windsor Forest, 281:
"Who now shall charm the shades where Cowley strungHis living harp, and lofty Denham sung?"
50. Cf. Browne, Religio Medici: "Rich with the spoils of nature."
51. "Rage is often used in the post-Elizabethan writers of the 17th century, and in the 18th century writers, for inspiration, enthusiasm" (Hales). Cf. Cowley:
"Who brought green poesy to her perfect age,And made that art which was a rage?"
and Tickell, Prol.:
Cf. also the use of the Latin rabies for the "divine afflatus," as in Γneid, vi. 49.
53. Full many a gem, etc. Cf. Bishop Hall, Contemplations: "There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fair pearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor never shall bee."
Purest ray serene. As Hales remarks, this is a favourite arrangement of epithets with Milton. Cf. Hymn on Nativity: "flower-inwoven tresses torn;" Comus: "beckoning shadows dire;" "every alley green," etc.; L'Allegro: "native wood-notes wild;" Lycidas: "sad occasion dear;" "blest kingdoms meek," etc.
55. Full many a flower, etc. Cf. Pope, Rape of the Lock, iv. 158:
Mitford cites Chamberlayne, Pharonida, ii. 4:
"Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scentOf odours in unhaunted deserts;"
and Young, Univ. Pass. sat. v.:
"In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green;
Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
And waste their music on the savage race;"
and Philip, Thule:
"Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert glades,And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades."
Hales quotes Waller's
"Go, lovely rose,Tell her that's young
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide
Thou must have uncommended died."
On desert air, cf. Macbeth, iv. 3: "That would be howl'd out in the desert air."
57. It was in 1636 that John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire (a cousin of Oliver Cromwell), refused to pay the ship-money tax which Charles I. was levying without the authority of Parliament.
58. Little tyrant. Cf. Thomson, Winter:
The artists who have illustrated this passage (see, for instance, Favourite English Poems, p. 305, and Harper's Monthly, vol. vii. p. 3) appear to understand "little" as equivalent to juvenile. If that had been the meaning, the poet would have used some other phrase than "of his fields," or "his lands," as he first wrote it.
59. Some mute inglorious Milton. Cf. Phillips, preface to Theatrum Poetarum: "Even the very names of some who having perhaps been comparable to Homer for heroic poesy, or to Euripides for tragedy, yet nevertheless sleep inglorious in the crowd of the forgotten vulgar."
60. Some Cromwell, etc. Hales remarks: "The prejudice against Cromwell was extremely strong throughout the 18th century, even amongst the more liberal-minded. That cloud of 'detractions rude,' of which Milton speaks in his noble sonnet to our 'chief of men' as in his own day enveloping the great republican leader, still lay thick and heavy over him. His wise statesmanship, his unceasing earnestness, his high-minded purpose, were not yet seen."
After this stanza Thomas Edwards, the author of the Canons of Criticism, would add the following, to supply what he deemed a defect in the poem:
"Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charmsShone with attraction to herself alone;
Whose beauty might have bless'd a monarch's arms,
Whose virtue cast a lustre on a throne.
"That humble beauty warm'd an honest heart,
And cheer'd the labours of a faithful spouse;
That virtue form'd for every decent part
The healthful offspring that adorn'd their house."
Edwards was an able critic, but it is evident that he was no poet.
63. Mitford quotes Tickell:
and Mrs. Behn:
66. Their growing virtues. That is, the growth of their virtues.
67. To wade through slaughter, etc. Cf. Pope, Temp. of Fame, 347:
68. Cf. Shakes. Hen. V. iii. 3:
70. To quench the blushes, etc. Cf. Shakes. W. T. iv. 3:
73. Far from the madding crowd's, etc. Rogers quotes Drummond:
Mitford points out "the ambiguity of this couplet, which indeed gives a sense exactly contrary to that intended; to avoid which one must break the grammatical construction." The poet's meaning is, however, clear enough.
75. Wakefield quotes Pope, Epitaph on Fenton:
"Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,Content with science in the vale of peace."
77. These bones. "The bones of these. So is is often used in Latin, especially by Livy, as in v. 22: 'Ea sola pecunia,' the money derived from that sale, etc." (Hales).
84. That teach. Mitford censures teach as ungrammatical; but it may be justified as a "construction according to sense."
85. Hales remarks: "At the first glance it might seem that to dumb Forgetfulness a prey was in apposition to who, and the meaning was, 'Who that now lies forgotten,' etc.; in which case the second line of the stanza must be closely connected with the fourth; for the question of the passage is not 'Who ever died?' but 'Who ever died without wishing to be remembered?' But in this way of interpreting this difficult stanza (i.) there is comparatively little force in the appositional phrase, and (ii.) there is a certain awkwardness in deferring so long the clause (virtually adverbal though apparently coΓΆrdinate) in which, as has just been noticed, the point of the question really lies. Perhaps therefore it is better to take the phrase to dumb Forgetfulness a prey as in fact the completion of the predicate resign'd, and interpret thus: Who ever resigned this life of his with all its pleasures and all its pains to be utterly ignored and forgotten?=who ever, when resigning it, reconciled himself to its being forgotten? In this case the second half of the stanza echoes the thought of the first half."
We give the note in full, and leave the reader to take his choice of the two interpretations. For ourself, we incline to the first rather than the second. We prefer to take to dumb Forgetfulness a prey as appositional and proleptic, and not as the grammatical complement of resigned: Who, yielding himself up a prey to dumb Forgetfulness, ever resigned this life without casting a longing, lingering look behind?
90. Pious is used in the sense of the Latin pius. Ovid has "piae lacrimae." Mitford quotes Pope, Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, 49:
"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tearPleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier;
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd."
"In this stanza," says Hales, "he answers in an exquisite manner the two questions, or rather the one question twice repeated, of the preceding stanza.... What he would say is that every one while a spark of life yet remains in him yearns for some kindly loving remembrance; nay, even after the spark is quenched, even when all is dust and ashes, that yearning must still be felt."
91, 92. Mitford paraphrases the couplet thus: "The voice of Nature still cries from the tomb in the language of the epitaph inscribed upon it, which still endeavours to connect us with the living; the fires of former affection are still alive beneath our ashes."
Cf. Chaucer, C. T. 3880:
Gray himself quotes Petrarch, Sonnet 169:
"Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,Fredda una lingua e due begli occhi chiusi,
Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville,"
translated by Nott as follows:
"These, my sweet fair, so warns prophetic thought,Clos'd thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue,
E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught,"
the "these" meaning his love and his songs concerning it. Gray translated this sonnet into Latin elegiacs, the last line being
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