Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 15

4. _Her Henry's holy shade_. Henry the Sixth, founder of the college.

Cf. _The Bard_, ii. 3: "the meek usurper's holy head;" Shakes. _Rich.

III._ v. 1: "Holy King Henry;" _Id._ iv. 4: "When holy Harry died."

The king, though never canonized, was regarded as a saint.

5. _And ye_. Ye "towers;" that is, of Windsor Castle. Cf. Thomson, _Summer_, 1412:

"And now to where Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow."

8. _Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among_. "That is, the _turf_ of whose _lawn_, the _shade_ of whose _groves_, the _flowers_ of whose mead" (Wakefield). Cf. _Hamlet_, iii. 1: "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword."

In Anglo-Saxon and Early English prepositions were often placed after their objects. In the Elizabethan period the transposition of the weaker prepositions was not allowed, except in the compounds _whereto_, _herewith_, etc. (cf. the Latin _quoc.u.m_, _sec.u.m_), but the longer forms were still, though rarely, transposed (see _Shakes.

Gr._ 203); and in more recent writers this latter license is extremely rare. Even the use of the preposition after the relative, which was very common in Shakespeare's day, is now avoided, except in colloquial style.

9. _The h.o.a.ry Thames_. The river-G.o.d is pictured in the old cla.s.sic fas.h.i.+on. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 103: "Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow." See also quotation from Dryden in note on 21 below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RIVER-G.o.d TIBER.]

10. _His silver-winding way_. Cf. Thomson, _Summer_, 1425: "The matchless vale of Thames, Fair-winding up," etc.

12. _Ah, fields belov'd in vain!_ Mitford remarks that this expression has been considered obscure, and adds the following explanation: "The poem is written in the character of one who contemplates this life as a scene of misfortune and sorrow, from whose fatal power the brief suns.h.i.+ne of youth is supposed to be exempt. The fields are _beloved_ as the scene of youthful pleasures, and as affording the promise of happiness to come; but this promise never was fulfilled. Fate, which dooms man to misery, soon overclouded these opening prospects of delight. That is in vain beloved which does not realize the expectations it held out. No fruit but that of disappointment has followed the blossoms of a thoughtless hope."

13. _Where once my careless childhood stray'd_. Wakefield cites Thomson, _Winter_, 6:

"with frequent foot Pleas'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nurs'd by careless Solitude I liv'd, And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleas'd have I wander'd," etc.

15. _That from ye blow_. In Early English _ye_ is nominative, _you_ accusative (objective). This distinction, though observed in our version of the Bible, was disregarded by Elizabethan writers (Shakes.

_Gr._ 236), as it has occasionally been by the poets even to our own day. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. VIII._ iii. 1: "The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye;" Milton, _Comus_, 216: "I see ye visibly," etc.

Dryden, in a couplet quoted by Guest, uses both forms in the same line:

"What gain you by forbidding it to tease ye?

It now can neither trouble _you_ nor please ye."

19. Gray quotes Dryden, _Fable on Pythag. Syst._: "And bees their honey redolent of spring."

21. _Say, father Thames_, etc. This invocation is taken from Green's _Grotto_:

"Say, father Thames, whose gentle pace Gives leave to view, what beauties grace Your flowery banks, if you have seen."

Cf. Dryden, _Annus Mirabilis_, st. 232: "Old father Thames raised up his reverend head."

Dr. Johnson, in his hypercritical comments on this Ode, says: "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself." To which Mitford replies by asking, "Are we by this rule to judge the following pa.s.sage in the twentieth chapter of _Ra.s.selas_? 'As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: "Answer," said she, "great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king.

Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint."'"

23. _Margent green_. Cf. _Comus_, 232: "By slow Maeander's margent green."

24. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths of Pleasure, trod."

26. _Thy gla.s.sy wave_. Cf. _Comus_, 861: "Under the gla.s.sy, cool, translucent wave."

27. _The captive linnet_. The adjective is redundant and "proleptic,"

as the bird must be "enthralled" before it can be called "captive."

28. In the MS. this line reads, "To chase the hoop's illusive speed,"

which seems to us better than the revised form in the text.

30. Cf. Pope, _Dunciad_, iv. 592: "The senator at cricket urge the ball."

37. Cf. Cowley, _Ode to Hobbes_, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions it descries."

40. _A fearful joy_. Wakefield quotes _Matt._ xxviii. 8 and _Psalms_ ii. 11. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ i. 513:

"Obstupuit simul ipse simul perculsus Achates Laet.i.tiaque metuque."

See also _Lear_, v. 3: "'Twixt two extremes of pa.s.sion, joy and grief."

44. Cf. Pope, _Eloisa_, 209: "Eternal suns.h.i.+ne of the spotless mind;"

and _Essay on Man_, iv. 168: "The soul's calm suns.h.i.+ne, and the heartfelt joy."

45. _Buxom_. Used here in its modern sense. It originally meant pliant, flexible, yielding (from A. S. _bugan_, to bow); then, gay, frolicsome, lively; and at last it became a.s.sociated with the "cheerful comeliness" of vigorous health. Chaucer has "buxom to ther lawe," and Spenser (_State of Ireland_), "more tractable and buxome to his government." Cf. also _F. Q._ i. 11, 37: "the buxome aire;" an expression which Milton uses twice (_P. L._ ii. 842, v. 270). In _L'Allegro_, 24: "So buxom, blithe, and debonaire;" the only other instance in which he uses the word, it means sprightly or "free" (as in "Come thou G.o.ddess, fair and free," a few lines before). Cf.

Shakes. _Pericles_, i. prologue:

"So buxom, blithe, and full of face, As heaven had lent her all his grace."

The word occurs nowhere else in Shakes. except _Hen. V._ iii. 6: "Of buxom valour;" that is, lively valour.

Dr. Johnson appears to have had in mind the original meaning of _buxom_ in his comment on this pa.s.sage: "His epithet _buxom health_ is not elegant; he seems not to understand the word."

47. _Lively cheer_. Cf. Spenser, _Shep. Kal._ Apr.: "In either cheeke depeincten lively chere;" Milton, _Ps._ lx.x.xiv. 27: "With joy and gladsome cheer."

49. Wakefield quotes Milton, _P. L._ v. 3:

"When Adam wak'd, so custom'd; for his sleep Was airy light, from pure digestion bred, And temperate vapours bland."

51. _Regardless of their doom_. Collins, in the _first ma.n.u.script_ of his _Ode on the Death of Col. Ross_, has

"E'en now, regardful of his doom, Applauding Honour haunts his tomb."[2]

[Footnote 2: Mitford gives the first line as "E'en now, _regardless_ of his doom;" and just below, on verse 61, he makes the line from Pope read, "The fury Pa.s.sions from that _flood_ began." We have verified his quotations as far as possible, and have corrected scores of errors in them. Quite likely there are some errors in those we have not been able to verify.]

55. _Yet see_, etc. Mitford cites Broome, _Ode on Melancholy_:

"While round stern ministers of fate, Pain and Disease and Sorrow, wait;"

and Otway, _Alcibiades_, v. 2: "Then enter, ye grim ministers of fate." See also _Progress of Poesy_, ii. 1: "Man's feeble race," etc.

59. _Murtherous_. The obsolete spelling of _murderous_, still used in Gray's time.

61. _The fury Pa.s.sions_. The pa.s.sions, fierce and cruel as the mythical Furies. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 167: "The fury Pa.s.sions from that blood began."