Chapter D: V., Goldsmith's Deserted Village (3)

"Yet some there be, that with due steps aspire
To lay their hands upon that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity."

See also _Lycidas_, 110:

"Two massy keys he bore of metals twain;
The golden opes, the iron shuts amain."

93. _Of horror_. A MS. variation is "Of terror."

94. _Or ope the sacred source_. In a letter to Dr. Wharton, Sept. 7, 1757, Gray mentions, among other criticisms upon this ode, that "Dr. Akenside criticises opening a _source_ with a _key_." But, as Mitford remarks, Akenside himself in his _Ode on Lyric Poetry_ has, "While I so late _unlock_ thy purer _springs_," and in his _Pleasures of Imagination_, "I _unlock_ the _springs_ of ancient wisdom."

95. _Nor second he_, etc. "Milton" (Gray).

96, 97. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ vii. 12:

"Up led by thee,
Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air."

98. _The flaming bounds_, etc. Gray quotes Lucretius, i. 74: "Flammantia moenia mundi." Cf. also Horace, _Epist._ i. 14, 9: "amat spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra."

99. Gray quotes _Ezekiel_ i. 20, 26, 28. See also Milton, _At a Solemn Music_, 7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" _Il Pens._ 53: "the fiery-wheeled throne;" _P. L._ vi. 758:

"Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch;"

and _id._ vi. 771:

"He on the wings of cherub rode sublime,
On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned."

101. _Blasted with excess of light_. Cf. _P. L._ iii. 380: "Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear."

102. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur lumina noctem," which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last in endless night." Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ viii. 64:

[Greek: Ophthalmôn men amerses, didou d' hêdeian aoidên.]

103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyond bounds."[3]

[Footnote 3: In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray became acquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden, adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly from the great poet."]

105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, _Imit. of Hor. Ep._ ii. 1, 267:

"Waller was smooth: but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine."

106. Gray quotes _Job_ xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"

108. _Bright-eyed_. The MS. has "full-plumed."

110. Gray quotes Cowley, _Prophet_: "Words that weep, and tears that speak."

Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought that Gray had in view the two different effects of words already described; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conception and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions."

111. "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses; above all in the last of _Caractacus_:

'Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread!' etc." (Gray).

113. _Wakes thee now_. Cf. _Elegy_, 48: "Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre."

115. "[Greek: Dios pros ornicha theion]. _Olymp._ ii. 159. Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise" (Gray).

Cf. Spenser, _F. Q._ v. 4, 42:

"Like to an Eagle, in his kingly pride
Soring through his wide Empire of the aire,
To weather his brode sailes."

Cowley, in his translation of Horace, _Od._ iv. 2, calls Pindar "the Theban swan" ("Dircaeum cycnum"):

"Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air
The Theban Swan does upward bear."

117. _Azure deep of air_. Cf. Euripides, _Med._ 1294: [Greek: es aitheros bathos]; and Lucretius, ii. 151: "Aëris in magnum fertur mare." Cowley has "Row through the trackless ocean of air;" and Shakes. (_T. of A._ iv. 2), "this sea of air."

118, 119. The MS. reads:

"Yet when they first were open'd on the day
Before his visionary eyes would run."

D. Stewart (_Philos. of Human Mind_) remarks that "Gray, in describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed with exquisite judgment on that class of our conceptions which are derived from _visible_ objects."

120. _With orient hues_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ i. 546: "with orient colours waving."

122. The MS. has "Yet never can he fear a vulgar fate."

123. Cf. K. Philips: "Still shew'd how much the good outshone the great."

We append, as a curiosity of criticism, Dr. Johnson's comments on this ode, from his _Lives of the Poets_. The Life of Gray has been called "the worst in the series," and perhaps this is the worst part of it:[4]

"My process has now brought me to the _wonderful_ 'Wonder of Wonders,' the two Sister Odes, by which, though either vulgar ignorance or common-sense at first universally rejected them, many have been since persuaded to think themselves delighted. I am one of those that are willing to be pleased, and therefore would gladly find the meaning of the first stanza of 'The Progress of Poetry.'

"Gray seems in his rapture to confound the images of spreading sound and running water. A 'stream of music' may be allowed; but where does 'music,' however 'smooth and strong,' after having visited the 'verdant vales, roll down the steep amain,' so as that 'rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar?' If this be said of music, it is nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose.

"The second stanza, exhibiting Mars's car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to his commonplaces.

"To the third it may likewise be objected that it is drawn from mythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to real life. Idalia's 'velvet-green' has something of cant. An epithet or metaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art; an epithet or metaphor drawn from Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. 'Many-twinkling' was formerly censured as not analogical; we may say 'many-spotted,' but scarcely 'many-spotting.' This stanza, however, has something pleasing.

"Of the second ternary of stanzas, the first endeavours to tell something, and would have told it, had it not been crossed by Hyperion; the second describes well enough the universal prevalence of poetry; but I am afraid that the conclusion will not arise from the premises. The caverns of the North and the plains of Chili are not the residences of 'Glory and generous Shame.' But that Poetry and Virtue go always together is an opinion so pleasing that I can forgive him who resolves to think it true.

"The third stanza sounds big with 'Delphi,' and 'Ægean,' and 'Ilissus,' and 'Mæander,' and with 'hallowed fountains,' and 'solemn sound;' but in all Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. His position is at last false: in the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by 'tyrant power' and 'coward vice;' nor was our state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts.

"Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true; but it is not said happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put out of sight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fill the mind, fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases the genuine.

"His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by study in the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, is poetically true and happily imagined. But the _car_ of Dryden, with his _two coursers_, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which any other rider may be placed."

[Footnote 4: Sir James Mackintosh well says of Johnson's criticisms: "Wherever understanding alone is sufficient for poetical criticism, the decisions of Johnson are generally right. But the beauties of poetry must be _felt_ before their causes are investigated. There is a poetical sensibility, which in the progress of the mind becomes as distinct a power as a musical ear or a picturesque eye. Without a considerable degree of this sensibility, it is as vain for a man of the greatest understanding to speak of the higher beauties of poetry as it is for a blind man to speak of colours. To adopt the warmest sentiments of poetry, to realize its boldest imagery, to yield to every impulse of enthusiasm, to submit to the illusions of fancy, to retire with the poet into his ideal worlds, were dispositions wholly foreign from the worldly sagacity and stern shrewdness of Johnson. As in his judgment of life and character, so in his criticism on poetry, he was a sort of Free-thinker. He suspected the refined of affectation, he rejected the enthusiastic as absurd, and he took it for granted that the mysterious was unintelligible. He came into the world when the school of Dryden and Pope gave the law to English poetry. In that school he had himself learned to be a lofty and vigorous declaimer in harmonious verse; beyond that school his unforced admiration perhaps scarcely soared; and his highest effort of criticism was accordingly the noble panegyric on Dryden."

W. H. Prescott, the historian, also remarks that Johnson, as a critic, "was certainly deficient in sensibility to the more delicate, the minor beauties of poetic sentiment. He analyzes verse in the cold-blooded spirit of a chemist, until all the aroma which constituted its principal charm escapes in the decomposition. By this kind of process, some of the finest fancies of the Muse, the lofty dithyrambics of Gray, the ethereal effusions of Collins, and of Milton too, are rendered sufficiently vapid."]

THE BARD.

"This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death" (Gray).

The original argument of the ode, as Gray had set it down in his commonplace-book, was as follows: "The army of Edward I., as they march through a deep valley, and approach Mount Snowdon, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the desolation and misery which he had brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardour of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valour in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its feet."

Mitford, in his "Essay on the Poetry of Gray," says of this Ode: "The tendency of _The Bard_ is to show the retributive justice that follows an act of tyranny and wickedness; to denounce on Edward, in his person and his progeny, the effect of the crime he had committed in the massacre of the bards; to convince him that neither his power nor situation could save him from the natural and necessary consequences of his guilt; that not even the virtues which he possessed could atone for the vices with which they were accompanied:

'Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy _virtues_, tyrant, shall avail.'

This is the real tendency of the poem; and well worthy it was of being adorned and heightened by such a profusion of splendid images and beautiful machinery. We must also observe how much this moral feeling increases as we approach the close; how the poem rises in dignity; and by what a fine gradation the solemnity of the subject ascends. The Bard commenced his song with feelings of sorrow for his departed brethren and his desolate country. This despondence, however, has given way to emotions of a nobler and more exalted nature. What can be more magnificent than the vision which opens before him to display the triumph of justice and the final glory of his cause? And it may be added, what can be more forcible or emphatic than the language in which it is conveyed?

'But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height,
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
_Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!_'

The fine apostrophe to the shade of Taliessin completes the picture of exultation:

'Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.'

The triumph of justice, therefore, is now complete. The vanquished has risen superior to his conqueror, and the reader closes the poem with feelings of content and satisfaction. He has seen the Bard uplifted both by a divine energy and by the natural superiority of virtue; and the conqueror has shrunk into a creature of hatred and abhorrence:

'Be thine despair, and sceptred care;
To triumph, and to die, are mine.'"

With regard to the _obscurity_ of the poem, the same writer remarks that "it is such only as of necessity arises from the plan and conduct of a prophecy." "In the prophetic poem," he adds, "one point of history alone is told, and the rest is to be acquired previously by the reader; as in the contemplation of an historical picture, which commands only one moment of time, our memory must supply us with the necessary links of knowledge; and that point of time selected by the painter must be illustrated by the spectator's knowledge of the past or future, of the cause or the consequences."

He refers, for corroboration of this opinion, to Dr. Campbell, who in his "Philosophy of Rhetoric," says: "I know no style to which darkness of a certain sort is more suited than to the prophetical: many reasons might be assigned which render it improper that prophecy should be perfectly understood before it be accomplished. Besides, we are certain that a prediction may be very dark before the accomplishment, and yet so plain afterwards as scarcely to admit a doubt in regard to the events suggested. It does not belong to critics to give laws to prophets, nor does it fall within the confines of any human art to lay down rules for a species of composition so far above art. Thus far, however, we may warrantably observe, that when the prophetic style is imitated in poetry, the piece ought, as much as possible, to possess the character above mentioned. This character, in my opinion, is possessed in a very eminent degree by Mr. Gray's ode called _The Bard_. It is all darkness to one who knows nothing of the English history posterior to the reign of Edward the First, and all light to one who is acquainted with that history. But this is a kind of writing whose peculiarities can scarcely be considered as exceptions from ordinary rules."

Farther on in the same essay, Mitford remarks: "The skill of Gray is, I think, eminently shown in the superior distinctness with which he has marked those parts of his prophecies which are speedily to be accomplished; and in the gradations by which, as he descends, he has insensibly melted the more remote into the deeper and deeper shadowings of general language. The first prophecy is the fate of Edward the Second. In that the Bard has pointed out the very night in which he is to be destroyed; has named the river that flowed around his prison, and the castle that was the scene of his sufferings:

'Mark the _year_, and mark the _night_,
When _Severn_ shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king.'

How different is the imagery when Richard the Second is described; and how indistinctly is the luxurious monarch marked out in the form of the morning, and his country in the figure of the vessel!

'The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born?
Gone to salute the rising morn.
Fair laughs the morn,' etc.

The last prophecy is that of the civil wars, and of the death of the two young princes. No place, no name is now noted: and all is seen through the dimness of figurative expression:

'Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled boar in infant gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.'"

Hales remarks: "It is perhaps scarcely now necessary to say that the tradition on which _The Bard_ is founded is wholly groundless. Edward I. never did massacre Welsh bards. Their name is legion in the beginning of the 14th century. Miss Williams, the latest historian of Wales, does not even mention the old story."[1]

[Footnote 1: The _Saturday Review_, for June 19, 1875, in the article from which we have elsewhere quoted (p. 79, foot-note), refers to this point as follows:

"Gray was one of the first writers to show that earlier parts of English history were not only worth attending to, but were capable of poetic treatment. We can almost forgive him for dressing up in his splendid verse a foul and baseless calumny against Edward the First, when we remember that to most of Gray's contemporaries Edward the First must have seemed a person almost mythical, a benighted Popish savage, of whom there was very little to know, and that little hardly worth knowing. Our feeling towards Gray in this matter is much the same as our feeling towards Mitford in the matter of Greek history. We are angry with Mitford for misrepresenting Demosthenes and a crowd of other Athenian worthies, but we do not forget that he was the first to deal with Demosthenes and his fellows, neither as mere names nor as demi-gods, but as real living men like ourselves. It was a pity to misrepresent Demosthenes, but even the misrepresentation was something; it showed that Demosthenes could be made the subject of human feeling one way or another. It is unpleasant to hear the King whose praise it was that

'Velox est ad veniam, ad vindictam tardus,'

spoken of as 'ruthless,' and the rest of it. But Gray at least felt that Edward was a real man, while to most of his contemporaries he could have been little more than 'the figure of an old Gothic king,' such as Sir Roger de Coverley looked when he sat in Edward's own chair."]

1. A good example of alliteration.

2. Cf. Shakes. _K. John_, iv. 2: "and vast confusion waits."

4. Gray quotes _K. John_, v. 1: "Mocking the air with colours idly spread."

5. "The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion" (Gray).

Cf. Robert of Gloucester: "With helm and hauberk;" and Dryden, _Pal. and Arc._ iii. 603: "Hauberks and helms are hewed with many a wound."

7. _Nightly_. Nocturnal, as often in poetry. Cf. _Il Pens._ 84, etc.

9. _The crested pride_. Gray quotes Dryden, _Indian Queen_: "The crested adder's pride."

11. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call _Craigian-eryri_: it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward the First, says: 'Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery;' and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), 'Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi castrum forte'" (Gray).

It was in the spring of 1283 that English troops at last forced their way among the defiles of Snowdon. Llewellyn had preserved those passes and heights intact until his death in the preceding December. The surrender of Dolbadern in the April following that dispiriting event opened a way for the invader; and William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, at once advanced by it (Hales).

The epithet _shaggy_ is highly appropriate, as Leland (_Itin._) says that great woods clothed the mountain in his time. Cf. Dyer, _Ruins of Rome_:

"as Britannia's oaks
On Merlin's mount, or Snowdon's rugged sides,
Stand in the clouds."

See also _Lycidas_, 54: "Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high;" and _P. L._ vi. 645: "the shaggy tops."

13. _Stout Gloster_. "Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward" (Gray). He had, in 1282, conducted the war in South Wales; and after overthrowing the enemy near Llandeilo Fawr, had reinforced the king in the northwest.

14. _Mortimer_. "Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore" (Gray). It was by one of his knights, named Adam de Francton, that Llewellyn, not at first known to be he, was slain near Pont Orewyn (Hales).

On _quivering lance_, cf. Virgil, _Æn._ xii. 94: "hastam quassatque trementem."

15. _On a rock whose haughty brow_. Cf. Daniel, _Civil Wars_: "A huge aspiring rock, whose surly brow."

The _rock_ is probably meant for Penmaen-mawr, the northern termination of the Snowdon range. It is a mass of rock, 1545 feet high, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway, the valley of which it overlooks. Towards the sea it presents a rugged and almost perpendicular front. On its summit is Braich-y-Dinas, an ancient fortified post, regarded as the strongest hold of the Britons in the district of Snowdon. Here the reduced bands of the Welsh army were stationed during the negotiation between their prince Llewellyn and Edward I. Within the inner enclosure is a never-failing well of pure water. The rock is now pierced with a tunnel 1890 feet long for the Chester and Holyhead railway.

17. _Rob'd in the sable garb of woe_. It would appear that Wharton had criticised this line, for in a letter to him, dated Aug. 21, 1757, Gray writes: "You may alter that '_Robed in_ the sable,' etc., almost in your own words, thus,

'With fury pale, and pale with woe,
Secure of Fate, the Poet stood,' etc.

Though _haggard_, which conveys to you the idea of a _witch_, is indeed only a metaphor taken from an unreclaimed hawk, which is called a _haggard_, and looks wild and _farouche_, and jealous of its liberty." Gray seems to have afterwards returned to his first (and we think better) reading.

19. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings (both believed originals), one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans's collection at Paris" (Gray).

20. _Like a meteor_. Gray quotes _P. L._ i. 537: "Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind."

21, 22. Wakefield remarks: "This is poetical language in perfection; and breathes the sublime spirit of Hebrew poetry, which delights in this grand rhetorical substitution."

23. _Desert caves_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 39: "The woods and desert caves."

26. _Hoarser murmurs_. That is, perhaps, with continually increasing hoarseness, hoarser and hoarser; or it may mean with unwonted hoarseness, like the comparative sometimes in Latin (Hales).

28. Hoel is called _high-born_, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of his father's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, and Normans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that are extant testify.

_Soft Llewellyn's lay_. "The lay celebrating the mild Llewellyn," says Hales, though he afterwards remarks that, "looking at the context, it would be better to take _Llewellyn_ here for a bard." Many bards celebrated the warlike prowess and princely qualities of Llewellyn. A poem by Einion the son of Guigan calls him "a tender-hearted prince;" and another, by Llywarch Brydydd y Moch, says: "Llewellyn, though in battle he killed with fury, though he burned like an outrageous fire, yet was a mild prince when the mead-horns were distributed." In an ode by Llygard Gwr he is also called "Llewellyn the mild."

29. Cadwallo and Urien were bards of whose songs nothing has been preserved. Taliessin (see 121 below) dedicated many poems to the latter, and wrote an elegy on his death: he was slain by treachery in the year 560.

30. _That hush'd the stormy main_. Cf. Shakes. _M. N. D._ ii. 2:

"Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song."

33. _Modred_. This name is not found in the lists of the old bards. It may have been borrowed from the Arthurian legends; or, as Mitford suggests, it may refer to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, called Merlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin, the form of the name being changed for the sake of euphony."

34. _Plinlimmon_. One of the loftiest of the Welsh mountains, being 2463 feet in height. It is really a group of mountains, three of which tower high above the others, and on each of these is a _carnedd_, or pile of stones. The highest of the three is further divided into two peaks, and on these, as well as on another prominent part of the same height, are other piles of stones. These five piles, according to the common tradition, mark the graves of slain warriors, and serve as memorials of their exploits; but some believe that they were intended as landmarks or military signals, and that from them the mountain was called _Pump-lumon_ or _Pum-lumon_, "the five beacons"--a name somehow corrupted into _Plinlimmon_. Five rivers take their rise in the recesses of Plinlimmon--the Wye, the Severn, the Rheidol, the Llyfnant, and the Clywedog.

35. _Arvon's shore_. "The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite the isle of Anglesey" (Gray). _Caernarvon_, or _Caer yn Arvon_, means the camp in Arvon.

38. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh _Craigian-eryri_, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowdon is called _the Eagle's Nest_. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, etc., can testify; it even has built its nest in the peak of Derbyshire [see Willoughby's Ornithology, published by Ray]" (Gray).

40. _Dear as the light_. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ iv. 31: "O luce magis dilecta sorori."

41. _Dear as the ruddy drops_. Gray quotes Shakes. _J. C._ ii. 1:

"As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart."

Cf. also Otway, _Venice Preserved_:

"Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life,
Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee."

42. Wakefield quotes Pope: "And greatly falling with a fallen state;" and Dryden: "And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate."

44. _Grisly_. See on _Eton Coll._ 82. Cf. _Lycidas_, 52:

"the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie."

48. "See the Norwegian ode that follows" (Gray). This ode (_The Fatal Sisters_, translated from the Norse) describes the _Valkyriur_, "the choosers of the slain," or warlike Fates of the Gothic mythology, as weaving the destinies of those who were doomed to perish in battle. It begins thus:

"Now the storm begins to lower
(Haste, the loom of hell prepare),
Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darken'd air.

"Glittering lances are the loom,
Where the dusky warp we strain,
Weaving many a soldier's doom,
Orkney's woe, and Randver's bane.

* * * * * *

"Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore,
Shoot the trembling cords along;
Swords, that once a monarch bore,
Keep the tissue close and strong.

* * * * * *

"(Weave the crimson web of war)
Let us go, and let us fly,
Where our friends the conflict share,
Where they triumph, where they die."

51. Cf. Dryden, _Sebastian_, i. 1:

"I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more."

55. "Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle" (Gray). The 1st ed. and that of 1768 have "roofs;" the modern eds. "roof."

Berkeley Castle is on the southeast side of the town of Berkeley, on a height commanding a fine view of the Severn and the surrounding country, and is in a state of perfect preservation. It is said to have been founded by Roger de Berkeley soon after the Norman Conquest. About the year 1150 it was granted by Henry II. to Robert Fitzhardinge, Governor of Bristol, who strengthened and enlarged it. On the right of the great staircase leading to the keep, and approached by a gallery, is the room in which it is supposed that Edward II. was murdered, Sept. 21, 1327. The king, during his captivity here, composed a dolorous poem, of which the following is an extract:

"Moste blessed Jesu,
Roote of all vertue,
Graunte I may the sue,
In all humylyte,
Sen thou for our good,
Lyste to shede thy blood,
An stretche the upon the rood,
For our iniquyte.
I the beseche,
Most holsome leche,
That thou wylt seche
For me such grace,
That when my body vyle
My soule shall exyle
Thou brynge in short wyle
It in reste and peace."

Walpole, who visited the place in 1774, says: "The room shown for the murder of Edward II., and the shrieks of an agonizing king, I verily believe to be genuine. It is a dismal chamber, almost at the top of the house, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind of foot-bridge, and from that descends a large flight of steps, that terminates on strong gates; exactly a situation for a _corps de garde_."

56. Cf. Hume's description: "The screams with which the agonizing king filled the castle."

57. _She-wolf of France_. "Isabel of France, Edward the Second's adulterous queen" (Gray). Cf. Shakes. 3 _Hen. VI._ i. 4: "She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France;" and read the context.

60. "Triumphs of Edward the Third in France" (Gray).

61. Cf. Cowley: "Ruin behind him stalks, and empty desolation;" and Oldham, _Ode to Homer_:

"Where'er he does his dreadful standard bear,
Horror stalks in the van, and slaughter in the rear."

63. For _victor_ the MS. has "conqueror;" also in next line "the" for _his_; and in 65, "what ... what" for _no_ ... _no_.

64. "Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress" (Gray).

67. "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father" (Gray).

69. The MS. has "hover'd in thy noontide ray," and in the next line "the rising day."

In _Agrippina_, a fragment of a tragedy, published among the posthumous poems of Gray, we have the same figure:

"around thee call
The gilded swarm that wantons in the sunshine
Of thy full favour."

71. "Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See Froissard and other contemporary writers" (Gray).

For this line and the remainder of the stanza, the MS. has the following:

"Mirrors of Saxon truth and loyalty,
Your helpless, old, expiring master view!
They hear not: scarce religion does supply
Her mutter'd requiems, and her holy dew.
Yet thou, proud boy, from Pomfret's walls shalt send
A sigh, and envy oft thy happy grandsire's end."

On the passage as it stands, cf. Shakes. _M. of V._ ii. 6:

"How like a younger, or a prodigal,
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay," etc.

Also Spenser, _Visions of World's Vanitie_, ix:

"Looking far foorth into the Ocean wide,
A goodly ship with banners bravely dight,
And flag in her top-gallant, I espide
Through the maine sea making her merry flight.
Faire blew the winde into her bosome right;
And th' heavens looked lovely all the while
That she did seeme to daunce, as in delight,
And at her owne felicitie did smile," etc.;

and again, _Visions of Petrarch_, ii.:

"After, at sea a tall ship did appeare,
Made all of heben and white yvorie;
The sailes of golde, of silke the tackle were:
Milde was the winde, calme seem'd the sea to bee,
The skie eachwhere did show full bright and faire:
With rich treasures this gay ship fraighted was:
But sudden storme did so turmoyle the aire,
And tumbled up the sea, that she (alas)
Strake on a rock, that under water lay,
And perished past all recoverie."

See also Milton, _S. A._ 710 foll.

72. _The azure realm_. Cf. Virgil, _Ciris_, 483: "Caeruleo pollens conjunx Neptunia regno."

73. Note the alliteration. Cf. Dryden, _Annus Mirab._ st. 151:

"The goodly London, in her gallant trim,
The phoenix-daughter of the vanish'd old,
Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim,
And on her shadow rides in floating gold."

75. _Sweeping whirlwind's sway_. Cf. the posthumous fragment by Gray on _Education and Government_, 48: "And where the deluge burst with sweepy sway." The expression is from Dryden, who uses it repeatedly; as in _Geo._ i. 483: "And rolling onwards with a sweepy sway;" _Ov. Met._: "Rushing onwards with a sweepy sway;" _Æn._ vii.: "The branches bend beneath their sweepy sway," etc.

76. _That hush'd in grim repose_, etc. Cf. Dryden, _Sigismonda and Guiscardo_, 242:

"So, like a lion that unheeded lay,
Dissembling sleep, and watchful to betray,
With inward rage he meditates his prey;"

and _Absalom and Achitophel_, 447:

"And like a lion, slumbering in the way,
Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey."

77. "Richard the Second (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and the confederate Lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date" (Gray).

79. _Reft of a crown_. Wakefield quotes Mallet's ballad of _William and Margaret_:

"Such is the robe that kings must wear
When death has reft their crown."

82. _A baleful smile_. The MS. has "A smile of horror on." Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 846: "Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile."

83. "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster" (Gray). Cf. _P. L._ vi. 209: "Arms on armour clashing brayed."

84. Cf. Shakes. 1 _Hen. IV._ iv. 1: "Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse;" and Massinger, _Maid of Honour_: "Man to man, and horse to horse."

87. "Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard Duke of York, etc., believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar" (Gray). The MS. has "Grim towers."

88. _Murther_. See on _murthorous_, p. 105.

89. _His consort_. "Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown" (Gray).

_His father_. "Henry the Fifth" (Gray).

90. _The meek usurper_. "Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown" (Gray). See on _Eton Coll._ 4. The MS. has "hallow'd head."

91. _The rose of snow_, etc. "The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster" (Gray).

Cf. Shakes. 1 _Hen. VI._ ii. 4:

"No, Plantagenet,
'Tis not for shame, but anger, that thy cheeks
Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses."

93. _The bristled boar_. "The silver boar was the badge of Richard the Third; whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of _the Boar_" (Gray). Scott (notes to _Lay of Last Minstrel_) says: "The crest or bearing of a warrior was often used as a _nom de guerre_. Thus Richard III. acquired his well-known epithet, 'the Boar of York.'" Cf. Shakes. _Rich. III._ iv. 5: "this most bloody boar;" v. 2: "The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar," etc.

98. See on 48 above.

99. _Half of thy heart_. "Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well known.[2] The monuments of his regret and sorrow for the loss of her[3] are still to be seen at Northampton, Geddington, Waltham, and other places" (Gray). Cf. Horace, _Od._ i. 3, 8: "animae dimidium meae."

[Footnote 2: See Tennyson, _Dream of Fair Women_:

"Or her who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
Sweet as new buds in spring."]

[Footnote 3: Gray refers to the "Eleanor crosses," erected at the places where the funeral procession halted each night on the journey from Hardby, in Nottinghamshire (near Lincoln), where the queen died, to Westminster. Of the thirteen (or, as some say, fifteen) crosses only three now remain--at Northampton, Geddington, and Waltham. The one at Charing Cross in London has been replaced by a fac-simile of the original. These monuments were all exquisite works of Gothic art, fitting memorials of _la chère Reine_, "the beloved of all England," as Walsingham calls her.]

101. _Nor thus forlorn_. In MS. "nor here forlorn;" in next line, "Leave your despairing Caradoc to mourn;" in 103, "yon black clouds;" in 104, "They sink, they vanish;" in 105, "But oh! what scenes of heaven on Snowdon's height;" in 106, "their golden skirts."

107. Cf. Dryden, _State of Innocence_, iv. 1: "Their glory shoots upon my aching sight."

109. "It was the common belief of the Welsh nation that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and would return again to reign over Britain" (Gray).

In the MS. this line and the next read thus:

"From Cambria's thousand hills a thousand strains
Triumphant tell aloud, another Arthur reigns."

110. "Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor" (Gray).

111. _Many a baron bold_. Cf. _L'Allegro_, 119: "throngs of knights and barons bold."

The reading in the MS. is,

"Youthful knights, and barons bold,
With dazzling helm, and horrent spear."

112. _Their starry fronts_. Cf. Milton, _Ode on the Passion_, 18: "His starry front;" Statius, _Theb._ 613: "Heu! ubi siderei vultus."

115. _A form divine_. Elizabeth. Wakefield quotes Spenser's eulogy of the queen, _Shep. Kal._ Apr.:

"Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face,
Like Phoebe fayre?
Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,
Can you well compare?
The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere;
Her modest eye,
Her Majestie,
Where have you seene the like but there?"

117. "Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie checkes'" (Gray). The MS. reads "A lion-port, an awe-commanding face."

121. "Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration among his countrymen" (Gray).

As Hales remarks, there is no authority for connecting him with Arthur, as Tennyson does in his _Holy Grail_.

123. Cf. Congreve, _Ode to Lord Godolphin_: "And soars with rapture while she sings."

124. _The eye of heaven_. Wakefield quotes Spenser, _F. Q._ 1. 3. 4,

"Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven shined bright."

Cf. Shakes. _Rich. II._ iii. 2: "the searching eye of heaven."

_Many-colour'd wings_. Cf. Shakes. _Temp._ iv. 1: "Hail, many-colour'd messenger;" and Milton, _P. L._ iii. 642:

"Wings he wore
Of many a colour'd plume sprinkled with gold."

126. Gray quotes Spenser, _F. Q._ Proeme, 9:

"Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song."

128. "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. _Il Penseroso_, 102: "the buskin'd stage;" that is, the tragic stage.

129. _Pleasing pain_. Cf. Spenser, _F. Q._ vi. 9, 10: "sweet pleasing payne;" and Dryden, _Virg. Ecl._ iii. 171: "Pleasing pains of love."

131. "Milton" (Gray).

133. "The succession of poets after Milton's time" (Gray).

135. _Fond_. Foolish. See on _Prog. of Poesy_, 46.

On the couplet, cf. Dekker, _If this be not a good play_, etc.:

"Thinkest thou, base lord,
Because the glorious Sun behind black clouds
Has awhile hid his beams, he's darken'd forever,
Eclips'd never more to shine?"

137. Cf. _Lycidas_, 169: "And yet anon repairs his drooping head;" and Fletcher, _Purple Island_, vi. 64: "So soon repairs her light, trebling her new-born raies."

141. Mitford remarks that there is a passage (which he misquotes, as usual) in the _Thebaid_ of Statius (iii. 81) similar to this, describing a bard who had survived his companions:

"Sed jam nudaverat ensem
Magnanimus vates, et nunc trucis ora tyranni,
Nunc ferrum adspectans: 'Nunquam tibi sanguinis hujus
Jus erit, aut magno feries imperdita Tydeo
Pectora; _vado equidem exsultans_ et _ereptaque fata_
Insequor, et comites feror expectatus ad umbras;
_Te_ Superis, fratrique.' Et jam media orsa loquentis
Abstulerat plenum capulo latus."

Cf. also a passage in Pindar (_Olymp._ i. 184), which Gray seems to have had in mind:

[Greek: Eiê se te touton
Hupsou chronon patein, eme
Te tossade nikaphorois
Homilein, k. t. l.

143. Cf. Virgil, _Ecl._ viii. 59:

"Praeceps aërii specula de montis in undas
Deferar; extremum hoc munus morientis habeto."

As we have given Johnson's criticism on _The Progress of Poesy_, we append his comments on this "Sister Ode:"

"'The Bard' appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and others have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it superior to its original; and, if preference depends only on the imagery and animation of the two poems, his judgment is right. There is in 'The Bard' more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is less than to invent, and the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. _Incredulus odi_.

"To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions, has little difficulty; for he that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that 'The Bard' promotes any truth, moral or political.

"His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned its measures, and consequently before it can receive pleasure from their consonance and recurrence.

"Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the ballad of 'Johnny Armstrong,'

'Is there ever a man in all Scotland--'

"The initial resemblances, or alliterations, 'ruin, ruthless, helm or hauberk,' are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity.

"In the second stanza the Bard is well described; but in the third we have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that 'Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main,' and that 'Modred made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head,' attention recoils from the repetition of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn.

"The _weaving_ of the _winding-sheet_ he borrowed, as he owns, from the Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the work of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life is another mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then called upon to 'Weave the warp, and weave the woof,' perhaps with no great propriety; for it is by crossing the _woof_ with the _warp_ that men weave the _web_ or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, 'Give ample room and verge enough.' He has, however, no other line as bad.

"The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond its merit. The personification is indistinct. _Thirst_ and _Hunger_ are not alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how 'towers are fed.' But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example; but suicide is always to be had, without expense of thought."

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

This poem first appeared in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. iv., together with the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." In Mason's and Wakefield's editions it is called an "Ode," but the title given by the author is as above.

The motto from Æschylus is not in Dodsley, but appears in the first edition of the poems (1768) in the form given in the text. The best modern editions of Æschylus have the reading, [Greek: ton (some, tôi) pathei mathos]. Keck translates the passage into German thus:

"Ihn der uns zur Sinnigkeit
leitet, ihn der fest den Satz
Stellet, 'Lehre durch das Leid.'"

Plumptre puts it into English as follows:

"Yea, Zeus, who leadeth men in wisdom's way,
And fixeth fast the law
Wisdom by pain to gain."

Cf. Mrs. Browning's _Vision of Poets_:

"Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And life is perfected by death."

1. Mitford remarks: "[Greek: Atê], who may be called the goddess of Adversity, is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter (_Il._ [Greek: t.] 91: [Greek: presba Dios thugatêr Atê, hê pantas aatai). Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the passage of Æschylus which he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the benefit of man." The latter is the more probable explanation.

2. Mitford quotes Pope, _Dunciad_, i. 163: "Then he: 'Great tamer of all human art.'"

3. _Torturing hour_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 90:

"The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance."

5. _Adamantine chains_. Wakefield quotes Æschylus, _Prom. Vinct._ vi.: [Greek: Adamantinôn desmôn en arrêktois pedais]. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ i. 48: "In adamantine chains and penal fire;" and Pope, _Messiah_, 47: "In adamantine chains shall Death be bound."

7. _Purple tyrants_. Cf. Pope, _Two Choruses to Tragedy of Brutus_: "Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand." Wakefield cites Horace, _Od._ i. 35, 12: "Purpurei metuunt tyranni."

8. _With pangs unfelt before_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 703: "Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."

9-12. Cf. Bacon, _Essays_, v. (ed. 1625): "Certainly, Vertue is like pretious Odours, most fragrant when they are incensed [that is, burned], or crushed:[1] For _Prosperity_ doth best discover Vice;[2] But _Adversity_ doth best discover Vertue."

[Footnote 1: So in his _Apophthegms_, 253, Bacon says: "Mr. Bettenham said: that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed."]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Shakespeare, _Julius Cæsar_, ii. 1: "It is the bright day that brings forth the adder."]

Cf. also Thomson:

"If Misfortune comes, she brings along
The bravest virtues. And so many great
Illustrious spirits have convers'd with woe,
Have in her school been taught, as are enough
To consecrate distress, and make ambition
E'en wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune."

16. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 630: "Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."

18. _Folly's idle brood_. Cf. the opening lines of _Il Penseroso_:

"Hence, vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly, without father bred!"

20. Mitford quotes Oldham, _Ode_: "And know I have not yet the leisure to be good."

22. _The summer friend_. Cf. Geo. Herbert, _Temple_: "like summer friends, flies of estates and sunshine;" Quarles, _Sion's Elegies_, xix.: "Ah, summer friendship with the summer ends;" Massinger, _Maid of Honour_: "O summer friendship." See also Shakespeare, _T. of A._ iii. 6:

"_2d Lord_. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship.

"_Timon_ [_aside_]. Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds are men;"

and _T. and C._ iii. 3:

"For men, like butterflies,
Shew not their mealy wings but to the summer."

Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind Horace, _Od._ i. 35, 25:

"At vulgus infidum et meretrix retro
Perjura cedit; diffugiunt cadis
Cum faece siccatis amici
Ferre jugum pariter dolosi."

25. _In sable garb_. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 16: "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue."

28. _With leaden eye_. Evidently suggested by Milton's description of Melancholy, _Il Pens._ 43:

"Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast."

Mitford cites Sidney, _Astrophel and Stella_, song 7: "So leaden eyes;" Dryden, _Cymon and Iphigenia_, 57: "And stupid eyes that ever lov'd the ground;" Shakespeare, _Pericles_, i. 2: "The sad companion, dull-eyed Melancholy;" and _L. L. L._ iv. 3: "In leaden contemplation." Cf. also _The Bard_, 69, 70.

31. _To herself severe_. Cf. Carew:

"To servants kind, to friendship dear,
To nothing but herself severe;"

and Dryden: "Forgiving others, to himself severe;" and Waller: "The Muses' friend, unto himself severe." Mitford quotes several other similar passages.

32. _The sadly pleasing tear_. Rogers cites Dryden's "sadly pleasing thought" (Virgil's _Æn._ x.); and Mitford compares Thomson's "lenient, not unpleasing tear."

35. _Gorgon terrors_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 611: "Medusa with Gorgonian terror."

36-40. Cf. _Ode on Eton College_, 55-70 and 81-90.

45-48. Cf. Shakespeare, _As You Like It_, ii. 1:

"these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;"

and Mallet:

"Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew
Himself, or his own virtue."

Guizot, in his _Cromwell_, says: "The effect of supreme and irrevocable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does not deprive of all virtue;" and Sir Philip Sidney remarks: "A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate."