Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 9

Tennyson (_In Mem._ x.) speaks of resting

'beneath the clover sod That takes the suns.h.i.+ne and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of G.o.d.'

In Gray's time, and long before, and some time after it, the former resting-place was for the poor, the latter for the rich. It was so in the first instance, for two reasons: (i.) the interior of the church was regarded as of great sanct.i.ty, and all who could sought a place in it, the most dearly coveted spot being near the high altar; (ii.) when elaborate tombs were the fas.h.i.+on, they were built inside the church for the sake of security, 'gay tombs' being liable to be 'robb'd' (see the funeral dirge in Webster's _White Devil_). As these two considerations gradually ceased to have power, and other considerations of an opposite tendency began to prevail, the inside of the church became comparatively deserted, except when ancestral reasons gave no choice" (Hales).

17. Cf. Milton, _Arcades_, 56: "the odorous breath of morn;" _P. L._ ix. 192:

"Now when as sacred light began to dawn In Eden on the humid flowers that breath'd Their morning incense," etc.

18. Hesiod ([Greek: Erg.] 568) calls the swallow [Greek: orthogoe chelidon.] Cf. Virgil, _aen._ viii. 455:

"Evandrum ex humili tecto lux suscitat alma, Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus."

19. _The c.o.c.k's shrill clarion_. Cf. Philips, _Cyder_, i. 753:

"When chanticleer with clarion shrill recalls The tardy day;"

Milton, _P. L._ vii. 443:

"The crested c.o.c.k, whose clarion sounds The silent hours;"

_Hamlet_, i. 1:

"The c.o.c.k that is the trumpet to the morn;"

Quarles, _Argalus and Parthenia_:

"I slept not till the early bugle-horn Of chaunticlere had summon'd in the morn;"

and Thomas Kyd, _England's Parna.s.sus_:

"The cheerful c.o.c.k, the sad night's trumpeter, Wayting upon the rising of the sunne; The wandering swallow with her broken song," etc.

20. _Their lowly bed_. Wakefield remarks: "Some readers, keeping in mind the 'narrow cell' above, have mistaken the 'lowly bed' in this verse for the grave--a most puerile and ridiculous blunder;" and Mitford says: "Here the epithet 'lowly,' as applied to 'bed,'

occasions some ambiguity as to whether the poet meant the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which in poetry is called a 'lowly bed.' Of course the former is designed; but Mr. Lloyd, in his Latin translation, mistook it for the latter."

21. Cf. Lucretius, iii. 894:

"Jam jam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor Optima nee dulces occurrent oscula nati Praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent;"

and Horace, _Epod._ ii. 39:

"Quod si pudica mulier in partem juvet Domum atque dulces liberos * * * * * * *

Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis foc.u.m La.s.si sub adventum viri," etc.

Mitford quotes Thomson, _Winter_, 311:

"In vain for him the officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire With tears of artless innocence."

Wakefield cites _The Idler_, 103: "There are few things, not purely evil, of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_."

22. _Ply her evening care_. Mitford says, "To _ply a care_ is an expression that is not proper to our language, and was probably formed for the rhyme _share_." Hales remarks: "This is probably the kind of phrase which led Wordsworth to p.r.o.nounce the language of the _Elegy_ unintelligible. Compare his own

'And she I cherished _turned her wheel_ Beside an English fire.'"

23. _No children run_, etc. Hales quotes Burns, _Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night_, 21:

"Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee."

24. Among Mitford's MS. variations we find "coming kiss." Wakefield compares Virgil, _Geo._ ii. 523:

"Interea dulces pendent circ.u.m oscula nati;"

and Mitford adds from Dryden,

"Whose little arms about thy legs are cast, And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste."

Cf. Thomson, _Liberty_, iii. 171:

"His little children climbing for a kiss."

26. _The stubborn glebe_. Cf. Gay, _Fables_, ii. 15:

"'Tis mine to tame the stubborn glebe."

_Broke_=broken, as often in poetry, especially in the Elizabethan writers. See Abbott, _Shakes. Gr._ 343.

27. _Drive their team afield_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 27: "We drove afield;"

and Dryden,_ Virgil's Ecl._ ii. 38: "With me to drive afield."

28. _Their st.u.r.dy stroke_. Cf. Spenser, _Shep. Kal._ Feb.:

"But to the roote bent his st.u.r.dy stroake, And made many wounds in the wast [wasted] Oake;"

and Dryden, _Geo._ iii. 639:

"Labour him with many a st.u.r.dy stroke."

30. As Mitford remarks, _obscure_ and _poor_ make "a very imperfect rhyme;" and the same might be said of _toil_ and _smile_.

33. Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from his friend West's _Monody on Queen Caroline_:

"Ah, me! what boots us all our boasted power, Our golden treasure, and our purple state; They cannot ward the inevitable hour, Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."

Hurd compares Cowley:

"Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power, Have their short flouris.h.i.+ng hour; And love to see themselves, and smile, And joy in their pre-eminence a while: Even so in the same land Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand; Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand."

35. _Awaits_. The reading of the ed. of 1768, as of the Pembroke (and probably the other) MS. _Hour_ is the subject, not the object, of the verb.