Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Take the wings Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there! So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw So live, that when thy summons comes to join To that mysterious realm where each shall take Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878). XX. FRIENDS DEPARTED. THEY are all gone into the world of light! It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest I see them walking in an air of glory, O holy Hope! and high Humility! High as the Heavens above! These are your walks, and you have shew'd them me To kindle my cold love. Dear, beauteous death; the Jewel of the Just! Shining no where but in the dark; What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark! He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may But what fair dell or grove he sings in now, And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams know So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep. If a star were confin'd into a tomb, Her captive flames must needs burn there; O Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under thee! Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall Either disperse these mists which blot and fill Or else remove me hence unto that hill Where I shall need no glass. HENRY VAUGHAN (1621–1695). NOTES. III. The Countess of Pembroke, commemorated in these famous lines, was Mary Herbert, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. It was she who wrote The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda (see note, page 65), and it was for her that Sidney composed the pastoral romance Arcadia. sable hearse. Compare with "sable shroud," Lycidas, 22. V. This is a song of Ariel, from Shakespeare's The Tempest, i. 2. VIII. Charles Lamb says of this little lyric that it possessed for him a charm which he could in no manner explain. 66 I lived on it for weeks." IX. gilds cowslips with her hair. Compare this conception of Aurora's hair with Shelley's reference to the hair of Morning, Adonais, xiv. 3-5. See also note on the same. X. This exquisite little poem was written in Germany in 1799. Dove. A stream which rises near Buxton in Derbyshire and finally flows into the Trent. It is often referred to by Walton in his Complete Angler, and by Charles Cotton who says: "O my beloved nymph, fair Dove, Princess of rivers, how I love Upon thy flowery banks to lie." XII. These lines are to the memory of Elizabeth, wife of Henry Hastings, fifth earl of Huntingdon. Mindful of the untruthfulness of too many epitaphs, Lord Falkland signed the original copy of these "by him who says what he saw," thus asserting that his praise of the Countess was not out of proportion to her deserts. XIII. Concerning Mrs. Catherine Thomson, we have no information, save that she was a friend of Milton's and died Dec. 16, 1646. this earthly load of death called life. Compare with Adonais, xxxix. 2, XV. These lines were written in memory of Hester Savory, 66 a young Quaker you may have heard me speak of as being in love with for some years while I lived at Pentonville," says Lamb, “though I had never spoken to her in my life." XVI. This poem is selected from Britannia's Pastorals, 1616. Notice the resemblance in thought between several of these lines and similar expressions in the elegies by Bion and Moschus. dolphins. See note 14, page 46. XVII. Burns, in the original title to this poem, characterizes Captain Henderson as "a gentleman who held the patent for his honours immediately from Almighty God." Compare the greater part of this elegy with the first five stanzas of the Lament for Bion. This song occurs in Chatterton's Tragedy of Ælla (1769), and is probably oftener quoted than any other portion of that author's works. gre- grow. reytes-water-flags. lethal deadly, fatal. Compare the second stanza with Hamlet, iv., v., 189–193. XIX. Thanatopsis was first published in the North American Review in 1817, and was written by Bryant when in his eighteenth year. The word is from two Greek words, thanatos, death, and opsis, view. |