How do your tuneful echoes languish, They sought, O Albion! next, thy sea-encircled coast. Far from the sun and summer gale, To him the mighty Mother did unveil Her awful face: the dauntless child "This pencil take," she said, "whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! This can unlock the gates of Joy; Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,2 Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." III. 2. Nor second he,3 that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstacy, The secrets of the abyss to spy. He passed the flaming bounds of place and time: 1 Alike they scorn, &c.-Dr. Johnson says of this couplet, "his (Gray's) position is at least false: in the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by a tyrant power and 'coward vice,' nor was our state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts." It is, however, probable, that the author meant to attribute the "tyrant power" to the state of Greece, and the "coward vice" to that of Italy, and to assign them as the reasons for the Muses' abandonment of both. 2 Thrilling Fears-Compare the reference to Shakspere at the close of Collins' "Ode to Fear." 3 Nor second he, &c.-This sublime eulogy on Milton must be pronounced in every respect worthy of its subject. The reference to the "living throne and sapphire blaze" is from Ezekiel i, 20, 26, 28. “This account," says Dr. Johnson, "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." The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers1 of ethereal race, With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace. Hark! his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er, Scatters from her pictured urn Thoughts that3 breathe, and words that burn: Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the good how far!-but far above the great. 1 Two coursers, &c.-This verse and the following, Gray himself inform us, are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes." Dr. Johnson, however, remarks upon the passage; "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." 2 Hark! his hands, &c.—In reference to Dryden, as the author of the ode on St. Cecilia's Day. 3 Thoughts that, &c.-i. e. thoughts that have a definite form and being, and words that kindle the feelings. 4 Theban eagle-" 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." 5 Yet oft before, &c.-Dugald Stewart has remarked, in his "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," p. 486, " 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." THE BARD. A PINDARIC ODE.1 I. 1. "RUIN Seize thee, ruthless King! Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing, Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail I. 2. On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood; (Loose his beard and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air,) O'er thee, O king!+ their hundred arms they wave, 1 "This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward I., when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death:" Gray. 2 Gloster-"Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward:" Gray. 3 Mortimer-"Edmond de Mortimer, lord of Wigmore:" Gray. 4 O'er thee, O king, &c.—In this couplet the "hundred arms" must be referred to the "giant-oaks," and the "hoarser murmurs" to the "desert" or hollow caves above named. Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, To high-born Hoel's' harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay. I. 3. "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hushed the stormy main: Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head. Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale; Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail; I see them sit; they linger yet, With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.5 1 High-born Hoel, &c.-Hoel, one of the famous bards of Wales, was the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, and Llewellyn was a prince of whom we are told that though he "burnt like an outrageous fire," in battle, yet the songs that he composed and sang were mild and soft. 2 Arvon's shore-"the shores of Caernarvonshire opposite to the Isle of Anglesey:" Gray. 3 Far, far aloof, &c.-These birds of prey do not venture to touch or even approach any thing so sacred as the corpses of the bards, though the eagle screams with hunger. 4 Dear as the ruddy drops, &c.-Gray himself quotes the following line from Shakspere, as the original of this expression: "As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart." Julius Cæsar. Act ii, scene 2. 5 Tissue of thy line-i. e. the web of fate in which are pictured as it were the fortunes of thy descendants. This notion of weaving a web of destiny is directly borrowed from the Scandinavian mythology, though the thread which is spun by the Fates in the Greek mythology, is closely connected with it. Dr. Johnson objects to the poet's "making weavers of slaughtered bards," inasmuch as in the original fable the operators are females. II. 1. "Weave the warp,1 and weave the woof, Mark the year,2 and mark the night, The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roofs that ring, She-wolf of France,3 with unrelenting fangs, The scourge of Heaven. What terrors round him wait! II. 2. "Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the sable warrior" fled? Thy son is gone: he rests among the dead. The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born? 1 Weave the warp-Dr. Johnson also censures this expression as incorrect; "for" says he "it is by crossing the woof with the warp that men weave the web or piece," but the learned doctor is himself wrong. The warp consists of the longitudinal, the woof of the latitudinal threads. 2 Mark the year, &c.-The prophecy of the bard now begins by a reference to the cruel death of Edward II. in Berkley Castle. 3 She-wolf of France-"Isabel of France, Edward II's. adulterous queen :" Gray. 4 From thee be born, &c.—In allusion to her son Edward III. who proved a scourge to her native country. 5 Amazement, &c.—In allusion to the victories which signalized the early part of his reign; the miseries of its close are indicated in the next line. 6 Low on his funeral couch, &c.-" Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress :" Gray. 7 Sable warrior-"Edward the Black Prince, died some time before his father:" Gray. 8 Rising morn-i. e. the early part of Richard II's. reign. |