Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 19

86. _The mighty mother_. That is, Nature. Pope, in the _Dunciad_, i.

1, uses the same expression in a satirical way:

"The Mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings The Smithfield Muses to the ear of kings, I sing."

See also Dryden, _Georgics_, i. 466:

"On the green turf thy careless limbs display, And celebrate the mighty mother's day."

87. _The dauntless child_. Cf. Horace, _Od._ iii. 4, 20: "non sine dis animosus infans." Wakefield quotes Virgil, _Ecl._ iv. 60: "Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem." Mitford points out that the identical expression occurs in Sandys's translation of Ovid, _Met._ iv. 515:

"the child Stretch'd forth its little arms, and on him smil'd."

See also Catullus, _In Nupt. Jun. et Manl._ 216:

"Torquatus volo parvulus Matris e gremio suae Porrigens teneras ma.n.u.s, Dulce rideat."

91. _These golden keys_. Cf. Young, _Resig._:

"Nature, which favours to the few All art beyond imparts, To him presented at his birth The key of human hearts."

Wakefield cites _Comus_, 12:

"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 ma.s.sy 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, _aen._ 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: Ophthalmon men amerses, didou d' hedeian aoiden.]

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_ x.x.xix. 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 a.s.sociated 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: "Aeris 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 cla.s.s 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."