Chapter X: Epilogue (3)

Gray was a brilliant bookworm. In private he was a quiet, abstracted, dreaming scholar, although in the company of a few friends he could become convivial and witty. His heart, however, was always in his study. His portrait gives you the impression of great fastidiousness, and almost feminine delicacy of face, as well as of considerable self-esteem. His face has more of the critic than of the poet. His learning and accomplishments have been equalled perhaps by no poet since Milton. He knew the Classics, the Northern Scalds, the Italian poets and historians, the French novelists, Architecture, Zoology, Painting, Sculpture, Botany, Music, and Antiquities. But he liked better, he said, to read than to write. You figure him always lounging with a volume in his hand, on a sofa, and crying out, "Be mine to read eternal novels of Marivaux and Crebillon." Against his moral character there exists no imputation; and notwithstanding a sneering hint of Walpole's, his religious creed seems to have been orthodox.

With all his learning and genius, he has done little. His letters and poems remind you of a few scattered leaves, surviving the conflagration of the Alexandrian library. The very popularity of the scraps which such a writer leaves, secures the torments of Tantalus to his numerous admirers in all after ages. His letters, in their grace, freedom, minuteness of detail, occasional playfulness, delicious _asides_ of gossip, and easy vigour of description, are more worthy of his powers, as a whole, than his poetry. The poetic fragments he has left are rarely of such merit as to excite any wish that they had been finished. His genius, although true and exquisite, was limited in its range, and hidebound in its movements. You see his genius, like a child, always casting a look of terror round on its older companion and guardian--his taste. Like Campbell, "he often spreads his wings grandly, but shrinks back timidly to his perch again, and seems afraid of the shadow of his own fame." Within his own range, however, he is as strong as he is delicate and refined. His two principal Odes have, as we hinted, divided much the opinion of critics. Dr Johnson has assailed them in his worst style of captious and word-catching criticism. Now, that there is much smoke around their fire, we grant. But we argue that there is genuine fire amidst their smoke,--first, from the fact that so many of their lines, such as,

"The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love;"
"The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye;"
"Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves;"
"Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air;"
"Beneath the good how far, but far above the great"
"High-born Hoel's harp, and soft Llewellyn's lay,"

are so often and admiringly quoted; and because, secondly, we can trace the influence of the "Progress of Poetry," and of the "Bard," on much of the higher song that has succeeded,--on the poetry of Bowles, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Campbell, and Shelley. Gray was not a sun shining in his strength, but he was the morning star, prognosticating the coming of a warmer and brighter poetic day.

He that can see no merit in the "Ode on the Distant Prospect of Eton College," can surely never have been a boy. The boy's heart beats in its every line, and yet all the experiences of boyhood are seen and shown in the sober light of those

"Years which bring the philosophic mind."

Here lies the complex charm of the poem. The unthinking gaiety of boyhood, its light sports, its airy gladness, its springy motions, the "tears forgot as soon as shed," the "sunshine of the breast" of that delightful period--are contrasted with the still and often sombre reflection, the grave joys, the carking cares, the stern concentred passions, the serious pastimes, the spare but sullen and burning tears, the sad smiles of manhood; and contrasted by one who is realising both with equal vividness and intensity--because he is in age a man, and in memory and imagination an Eton schoolboy still. The breezes of boyhood return and blow on a head on which gray hairs are beginning "here and there" to whiten; and he cries--

"I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring."

Dr Johnson makes a peculiarly poor and unworthy objection to the next stanza of the poem. Speaking of the address to the Thames--

"Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race;"

he says, "Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself." He should have left this objection to those wretched _mechanical_ critics who abound in the present day. He forgot that in his own "Rasselas" he had invoked the Nile, as the great "Father of waters," to tell, if, in any of the provinces through which he rolled, he did not hear the language of distress. Critics, like liars, should have good memories.

His remark that the "Prospect of Eton College" suggests nothing to Gray which every beholder does not equally think and feel, is, in reality, a compliment to the simplicity and naturalness of the strain. Common thought and feeling crystalised, is the staple of much of our best poetry. Gray says in a poetical way, what every one might have thought and felt, but no one but he could have so beautifully expressed. To the spirited translations from the Norse and Welsh, the only objection urged by Dr Johnson is, that their "language is unlike the language of other poets"--an objection which would tell still more powerfully against Milton, Collins, and Young, not to speak of the "chartered libertines" of our more modern song. But a running growl of prejudice is heard in every sentence of Gray's Life by Johnson, and tends far more to injure the critic than the poet.

In his "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," Gray has caught, concentred, and turned into a fine essence, the substance of a thousand meditations among the tombs. One of its highest points of merit, conceded by Dr Johnson, is essentially the same with which he had found fault in the "Ode to Eton College." "The poem abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo." Everything is in intense keeping. The images are few, but striking; the language is severely simple; the thought is at once obvious and original, at once clear and profound, and many of the couplets seem carefully and consciously chiselled for immortality, to become mottoes for every churchyard in the kingdom, and to "teach the rustic moralist to die," while the country remains beautiful, and while death continues to inspire fear. And with what daring felicity of genius does the author introduce, ere the close, a living but anonymous figure amidst the company of the silent dead, and contrive to unite the interest of a personal story, the charm of a mystery, and the solemnity of a moral meditation, into one fine whole! We know of but one objection of much weight to this exquisite elegy. There is scarcely the faintest or most faltering allusion to the doctrine of the resurrection. Death has it all his own way in this citadel of his power. The poet never points his finger to the distant horizon, where life and immortality are beginning to colour the clouds with the promise of the eternal morning. The elegy might almost have been written by a Pagan. In this point, Beattie, in his "Hermit," has much the advantage of his friend Gray; for _his_ eye is anointed to behold a blessed vision, and his voice is strengthened thus to sing--

"On the pale cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

Nevertheless, had Gray been known, not for his scholarship, not for his taste, not for his letters and minor poems, not for his reputed powers and unrivalled accomplishments, but solely for this elegy--had only it and his mere name survived, it alone would have entitled him to rank with Britain's best poets.

* * * * *

GRAY'S POEMS.

ODES.

I.--ON THE SPRING.

1. Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of Spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

2. Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade.
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'ercanopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little, are the proud,
How indigent the great!

3. Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark! how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon;
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily gilded trim,
Quick glancing to the sun.

4. To Contemplation's sober eye,
Such is the race of Man,
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day,
In Fortune's varying colours dress'd;
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

5. Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply,
Poor Moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown,
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone--
We frolic while 'tis May.

* * * * *

II.--ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT,

DROWNED IN A CHINA TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

1. 'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

2. Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw, and purr'd applause.

3. Still had she gazed, but,' midst the tide,
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue,
Through richest purple, to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

4. The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize:
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?

5. Presumptuous maid! with looks intent,
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between:
(Maligant Fate sat by and smiled,)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in.

6. Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mew'd to every watery god
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd,
Nor cruel Tom or Susan heard:
A favourite has no friend!

7. From hence, ye beauties! undeceived,
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold:
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes,
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,
Nor all that glisters gold.

* * * * *

III--ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

[Greek: Anthropos ikanae profasis eis to dustuchein]

MENANDER.

1 Ye distant spires! ye antique towers!
That crown the watery glade
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's (1) holy shade;
And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights the expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way:

2 Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

3 Say, father Thames! for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

4 While some, on earnest business bent,
Their murmuring labours ply,
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint,
To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry;
Still as they run they look behind.
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

5 Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possess'd;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast;
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.

6 Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around them wait,
The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah! show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah! tell them they are men!

7 These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling teeth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

8 Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning infamy:
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse, with blood defiled,
And moody Madness, laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

9 Lo! in the vale of years beneath,
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage;
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

10 To each his sufferings; all are men
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise--
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

[Footnote: (1) 'Henry:' King Henry VI., founder of the College.]

* * * * *

IV.--HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

[Greek:

Zaena ...
Ton phronein brotous odosanta, to pathei mathos
phenta kurios echein.

ÆSCH. AG. 167.]

1 Daughter of Jove, relentless Power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

2 When first thy Sire to send on earth,
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind:
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore;
What sorrow was thou badest her know,
And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

3 Scared at thy frown, terrific fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse; and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity received,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

4 Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,
Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid!
With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend;
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

5 Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread Goddess! lay thy chastening hand,
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Nor circled with the vengeful band:
(As by the impious thou art seen),
With thundering voice and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

6 Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there,
To soften, not to wound, my heart:
The generous spark extinct revive;
Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan;
What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

* * * * *

V.--THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

PINDARIC.

ADVERTISEMENT.--When the author first published this and the following ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes, but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty.

[Greek:

Phonanta sunetoisin es
De to pan hermaeneon
Chatizei.--
PINDAR, _Olymp._ ii.]

I.--1.

Awake, Aeolian lyre! awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings;
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take;
The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Through verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.

I.--2.

Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting Shell! the sullen Cares
And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curb'd the fury of his car,
And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command:
Perching on the sceptred hand
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak and lightnings of his eye.

I.--3.

Thee the voice, the dance obey,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay:
O'er India's velvet green
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen,
On Cytherea's day,
With antic Sports and blue-eyed Pleasures
Frisking light in frolic measures:
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet;
To brisk notes in cadence beating,
Glance their many-twinkling feet.
Slow-melting strains their Queen's approach declare
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay;
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way:
O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

II.--1.

Man's feeble race what life await!
Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
The fond complaint, my Song! disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
Night and all her sickly dews,
Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky,
Till down the eastern cliffs afar
Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war.

II.--2.

In climes beyond the Solar road,
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode;
And oft beneath the odorous shade
Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,
In loose numbers, wildly sweet,
Their feather-cinctured chiefs and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.

II.--3.

Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles that crown the Ægean deep,
Fields that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Meander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep, I
How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around;
Every shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound,
Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains:
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
They sought, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

III.--1.

Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty Mother did unveil
Her awful face; the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smiled.
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 Pears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.

III.--2.

Nor second He that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy;
The secrets of the abyss to spy,
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
Two coursers[1] of ethereal race,
With necks in thunder clothed and long-resounding pace.

III.--3.

Hark! his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn;
But ah! 'tis heard no more.
O lyre divine! what dying spirit[2]
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride nor ample pinion
That the Theban eagle[3] bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air,
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun;
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.

[Footnote 1: 'Coursers:' the heroic rhymes.]

[Footnote 2: 'Dying spirit:' Cowley.]

[Footnote 3: 'Theban eagle:' Pindar.]

* * * * *

VI--THE BARD.

PINDARIC.

ADVERTISEMENT.--The following 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.

I.--1.

'Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm nor hauberk's[1] twisted mail,
Nor even thy virtues, Tyrant! shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears;
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array:
Stout Glo'ster[2] stood aghast in speechless trance:
To arms! cried Mortimer,[3] and couch'd his quivering lance.

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,
Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air,)
And with a master's hand and prophet's fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre:
'Hark how each giant oak and desert cave
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
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 hush'd the stormy main;
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains! ye moan in vain
Modrid, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head.
On dreary Arvon's shore[4] they lie,
Smear'd with gore and ghastly pale;
Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail;
The famish'd eagle screams and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art!
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries--
No more I weep. They do not sleep:
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
I see them sit; they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.

II.--1.

"Weave the warp and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race:
Give ample room and verge enough
The characters of Hell to trace.
Mark the year and mark the night
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death through Berkley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonising king![5]
She-wolf of France,[6] with unrelenting fangs
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee[7] be born who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heaven. What terrors round him wait!
Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.

II.--2.

"Mighty Victor, mighty Lord,
Low on his funeral couch[8] he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye afford
A tear to grace his obsequies!
Is the sable warrior[9] fled?
Thy son is gone; he rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born,
Gone to salute the rising morn:
Fair laughs the morn,[10] and soft the Zephyr blows,
While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm,
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

II.--3.

"Fill high the sparkling bowl,[11]
The rich repast prepare;
Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast.
Close by the regal chair
Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
A baleful smile upon the baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,[12]
Lance to lance and horse to horse?
Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way;
Ye Towers of Julius![13] London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consort's[14] faith, his father's[15] fame,
And spare the meek usurper's[16] holy head.
Above, below, the Rose of snow,[17]
Twined with her blushing foe, we spread;
The bristled Boar[18] in infant gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade;
Now, Brothers! bending o'er the accursed loom,
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

III.--I.

"Edward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof; the thread is spun:)
Half of thy heart[19] we consecrate;
(The web is wove; the work is done.")
'Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn,
In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
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!
No more our long-lost Arthur[20] we bewail:
All hail, ye genuine Kings![21] Britannia's issue, hail!

III.--2.

'Girt with many a baron bold,
Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames and statesmen old
In bearded majesty appear;
In the midst a form divine,
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line,
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,[22]
Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air!
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin,[23] hear!
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and, soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-colour'd wings.

III.--3.

'The verse adorn again,
Fierce War and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dress'd.
In buskin'd measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice[24] as of the cherub-choir
Gales from blooming Eden bear,
And distant warblings[25] lessen on my ear,
That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud,
Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day?
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
Enough for me: with joy I see
The different doom our Fates assign;
Be thine despair and sceptred care;
To triumph and to die are mine.'
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height,
Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.

[Footnote 1: 'Hauberk:' 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.]

[Footnote 2: 'Stout Glo'ster:' Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward.]

[Footnote 3: 'Mortimer:' Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were Lords Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the King in this expedition.]

[Footnote 4: 'Arvon's shore:' the shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the isle of Anglesey.]

[Footnote 5: 'King:' Edward II., cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle.]

[Footnote 6: 'She-wolf of France:' Isabel of France, Edward II.'s adulterous queen.]

[Footnote 7: 'From thee:' triumphs of Edward III. in France.]

[Footnote 8: 'Funeral couch:' death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress.]

[Footnote 9: 'Sable warrior:' Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father.]

[Footnote 10: 'Fair laughs the morn:' magnificence of Richard II.'s reign; see Froissard, and other contemporary writers.]

[Footnote 11: 'Sparkling bowl:' Richard II. was starved to death; the story of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date.]

[Footnote 12: 'Battle bray:' ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster.]

[Footnote 13: 'Towers of Julius:' Henry VI., George Duke of Clarence, Edward V., Richard Duke of York, &c., believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London; the oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar.]

[Footnote 14: 'Consort:' Margaret of Anjou.]

[Footnote 15: 'Father:' Henry V.]

[Footnote 16: 'Usurper:' Henry VI., very near being canonised; the line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown.]

[Footnote 17: 'Rose of snow:' the White and Red Roses, devices of York and Lancaster.]

[Footnote 18: 'Boar:' the silver Boar was the badge of Richard III., whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of The Boar.]

[Footnote 19: 'Half of thy heart:' Eleanor of Castile, Edward's wife, died a few years after the conquest of Wales.]

[Footnote 20: 'Long-lost Arthur:' it was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and should return again to reign over Britain.]

[Footnote 21: 'Genuine kings:' 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.]

[Footnote 22; 'Awe-commanding face:' Queen Elizabeth.]

[Footnote 23: '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.]

[Footnote 24: 'A voice:' Milton.]

[Footnote 25: 'Warblings:' the succession of poets after Milton's time.]

* * * * *

VII.--THE FATAL SISTERS.

FROM THE NORSE TONGUE.[1]

'Vitt er orpit
Fyrir valfalli.'

ADVERTISEMENT.--The author once had thoughts (in concert with a friend) of giving a history of English poetry. In the introduction to it he meant to have produced some specimens of the style that reigned in ancient times among the neighbouring nations, or those who had subdued the greater part of this island, and were our progenitors: the following three imitations made a part of them. He afterwards dropped his design; especially after he had heard that it was already in the hands of a person[2] well qualified to do it justice both by his taste and his researches into antiquity.