Six Centuries of English Poetry

Author of "The Book Lover"
etc., etc.

This is the first volume of a series of Select English Classics which the publishers have in course of preparation. The series will include an extensive variety of selections chosen from the different departments of English literature, and arranged and annotated for the use of classes in schools. It will embrace, among other things, representative specimens from all the best English writers, whether of poetry or of prose; selections from English dramatic literature, especially of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; choice extracts from the writings of the great essayists; selections from famous English allegories; a volume of elegies and elegiacal poetry; studies of English prose fiction, with illustrative specimens, etc. Each volume will contain copious notes, critical, explanatory, and biographical, besides the necessary vocabularies, glossaries, and indexes; and the series when complete will present a varied and comprehensive view of all that is best in English literature. For supplementary reading, as well as for systematic class instruction, the books will possess many peculiarly valuable as well as novel features; while their attractive appearance, combined with the sterling quality of their contents, will commend them for general reading and make them desirable acquisitions for every library.

There is but one study more interesting than the history of literature, and that is the study of literature itself. That the former should often be mistaken for the latter is scarcely to be wondered at when we consider the intimate and almost indivisible relationship existing between them. Yet, in truth, they are as capable of separate consideration as are music and the history of music.

Any careful investigation of the history of English poetry would naturally begin at a point of time some six or seven hundred years earlier than that of Chaucer. From such investigation we should learn that even as early as the ninth century—perhaps, indeed, the eighth—there were in England some composers of verse in the Anglo-Saxon tongue; that the songs of these poets were chiefly of religion or of war, and that being written in a language very different from our modern English they can scarcely be considered as belonging properly to our literature; that among them, however, is a noble poem, "Beowulf," the oldest epic of any modern people, which was probably sung or recited by pagan minstrels long before it was written down in permanent form; that, after the conquest of England by the Normans, the early language of the The Transition Period.English people underwent a long and tedious process of transition,—a blending, in a certain sense, with the Latinized and more polished tongue of their conquerors,—and that the result was the language which we now call English and are proud to claim as our own; that it was about three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, namely, in 1362, that this new tongue was officially recognized and authorized to be used in the courts at law throughout the land; and that about the same time Geoffrey Chaucer composed and wrote his first poems. We should learn, moreover, that, during the transition period mentioned above, there were many attempts at writing poetry, resulting in the production of tedious metrical romances (chiefly translated from the French) and interminable rhyming chronicles, pleasing, of course, to the people of that time, but wholly devoid of poetic excellence and unspeakably dull to modern readers; that these poems, so called, were little better than rhymed doggerels, written in couplets of eight-syllabled lines and having for their subjects the miraculous deeds of saints and heroes and the occurrence of supernatural or impossible phenomena; that the composers of these metrical romances and chronicles, although giving free rein to the imagination, were utterly destitute of poetic fancy and hence produced no true poetry; that, nevertheless, some writer was now and then inspired by a flash of real poetic fire, producing a few lines of remarkable freshness and beauty,—little lyrics shining forth like gems in the great mass of verbiage and rubbish and foretelling the glorious possibilities which were to be realized in the future.

Continuing this most interesting study, we should learn that just at the time that Chaucer was beginning the composition of his immortal works, there appeared an allegorical poem of considerable length, so earnest in tone, so richly imaginative, so full of picturesque descriptions, that it seemed rather a fulfilment than a prophecy; that this poem—called "The Vision of William concerning Piers Ploughman," and written by an obscure monk whose name was probably William Langland—was the greatest poem and the most popular that had ever been written in England, and yet that it failed in many ways of being true English poetry: its metre was irregular, and its rhythm was imperfect; its verses instead of rhyming were constructed in accordance with certain rules of alliteration; its subjects, while interesting, no doubt, to those for whom it was written, were not such as bring into play the highest powers of the imagination or incite the poetic fancy to its noblest flights. Then we should learn that while the ink from good Langland's pen was yet scarcely dry after his third revision of "Piers Ploughman," Geoffrey Chaucer came forward with his sweet imaginings bodied in immortal verse, his tuneful numbers, his "well of English undefiled,"—and English poetry, which now for more than five centuries has been the chief glory of our literature, had its true beginning.

Pursuing the study on lines which would now be more distinctly marked, we should observe that Chaucer's best poetry, as well as that of the poets who followed him in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was distinguished by its truthfulness to nature, by its expression in hearty and harmonious words of the finer emotions of the soul, and by the freedom and elasticity of its versification. We should learn that in the seventeenth century this style of poetry—sometimes called the romantic—was succeeded by another and very different fashion in poetic composition, introduced into England in imitation of continental and classical models: that this new style of versification—ignoring nature and making everything subservient to art—was purely artificial, characterized by "an oratorical pomp, a classical correctness, a theatrical dressing, abundance of moralizing"; and that, with Waller for its sponsor and Dryden and Pope for its high priests, it remained for a century and a half the favorite of the literary world, the model of poetic diction, the standard of poetic taste. We should learn that, towards the end of the eighteenth century, certain writers began to perceive that although attention to artistic rules in composition may be necessary to the best poetry, yet natural feeling, a cultivated imagination, and a fancy unrestrained by merely arbitrary limitations are even more indispensable; that these writers, rebelling against the established order of things, taught that there are elements of true poetry in the popular ballads of earlier times, that even the wearisome metrical romances of the Middle Ages are rich in suggestiveness and in materials for a nobler poetry, and that, instead of going to the classics and to society for subjects and models, the poet may find them in nature, in the life which is about him, and in a thousand sources never before suspected. Finally, we should learn that, at the very time when great revolutions in politics and philosophy were being inaugurated, a new spirit thus began to manifest itself in our literature,—a spirit of revolt against artificial restrictions and traditional methods,—which produced a glorious revival in English poetic composition and ushered in a third great school of poetry, distinguished for its breadth and freedom, as that which it superseded had been known for its elegance and precision.[6:1]

A study of the development of English poetry such as we have outlined above would involve a knowledge of the history of the English people and of the various circumstances and events which from time to time influenced our language and literature. It would also embrace many other topics, biographical, philological, rhetorical, and speculative, which have only a secondary relationship to the central idea of poetry. In fact, it would be a study not of poetry, but about poetry,—of the circumstances which suggested it, of the men who produced it, and of the origin of the word-forms and methods of versification which distinguish it. Such a study, altogether interesting and eminently profitable though it be, should not be undertaken by any student until he has acquired an extensive personal acquaintance with poetry itself. We may enjoy the beautiful creations of Tennyson, of Shelley, of Burns, even of Chaucer, without knowing one word of the history of poetry, without so much as knowing the names of the writers or the circumstances under which they wrote. But, on the other hand, to him who knows nothing of the masterpieces of our literature, save at second hand, the history of English letters must of necessity be dull, uninteresting, and often unintelligible. While to him who has prepared himself for its study by fitting himself for an appreciation of these noble creations and becoming thoroughly imbued with their spirit, what a field of delightful study does it offer!

The object of the present compilation is to aid in this preparatory work,—that is, to offer a plan for promoting the study of poetry before the broader but less important study about poetry is undertaken. To this end we present for the student's consideration a few representative poems written at different times and by men of widely different tastes and talents during the six centuries which may be said to have elapsed since the formation of the modern English tongue. Our chief aim is to lead to such a study of these selections as shall help the reader to perceive and appreciate their true poetic qualities and enter into full sympathy with the thoughts and feelings which their writers intended to express. Methods of Study. The first object to be sought in the study of these poems is the perception of those characteristic excellences which have made them universally admired and placed them among the classics of our language. To accomplish this object rationally and successfully, it is best to begin with those productions which are nearest to us in point of time and which are more in harmony with our own thoughts, and therefore easiest to understand and enjoy. An attempt to pursue these studies in chronological order, beginning with the works of Chaucer and the older poets, would oblige the student to encounter at the outset so many purely mechanical difficulties that he would fail to discern the spiritual qualities of truth, beauty, and goodness, which are the very essence of all genuine poetry. He would very naturally acquire a distaste for poetry long before he was able to understand it, and while he might attain to some considerable knowledge of the history of poetical literature, that literature itself would remain to him practically a sealed book. Hence, in the study of this subject, as in that of other branches, the true method is to present first that which is the least difficult, to "proceed from the known to the unknown," to begin with that which is near at hand and from it to proceed to the consideration of things more remote. Not only are the most of Tennyson's poems easily understood, but their beauty is readily apparent even to the most superficial readers. By the time we have read and extracted all the sweets from three or four of these, we shall be prepared to go a step farther and undertake the study of Wordsworth's immortal productions,—productions but little more difficult and but little less poetic. Thus, step by step, we may review the six centuries of English poetry which lie behind, and when at last we reach the time of Chaucer we shall be able to take hold of his works with understanding and with the zest which is begotten of true sympathy and appreciation. After the book has been thus completed, it may be well to run through it again, reversing the order of the lessons and this time considering the subjects in strict chronological order. Our first study of the book will have introduced us to English poetry, our second study of it will have given us some insight into the history of its development.

It is well to remember, while pursuing this course, that a taste for poetry is not acquired or fostered by an analysis of grammatical forms or by any study of words merely as such. To analyze a puzzling sentence or to trace the derivation of an interesting word to its roots sometimes helps one to understand a difficult expression or to perceive in it a meaning hitherto unsuspected; but to make the study of any selection consist largely of exercises of this kind is to substitute grammar or philology for literature. So, also, should it be borne in mind that while it is often interesting and sometimes necessary to become acquainted with certain details relative to the life of an author—the date of his birth, the character of his education, the influences which shaped his life and his work—yet such knowledge belongs to biography and is in no sense literature. The study of authors should never be substituted for the study of their works, and is usually profitable only so far as it helps the student to understand the peculiarities which distinguish those works and which are the result of certain personal characteristics. And yet it is no uncommon thing to find students acquainted with the minutest particulars in the lives of the great writers, while of the masterpieces of thought and expression, which are the glory of our literature, they betray a deplorable ignorance. Nor is this the case with pupils at school alone. "For once that we take down a Milton, and read a book of that 'voice,' as Wordsworth says, 'whose sound is like the sea,' we take up fifty times a magazine with something about Milton, or about Milton's grandmother, or a book stuffed with curious facts about the houses in which he lived, and the juvenile ailments of his first wife."[9:1]

In the study of the selections contained in this volume, the following method is recommended:—

1. The piece should be thoroughly committed to memory.

2. It should be recited or read by each member of the class in such manner as to bring out, if possible, his understanding of the meaning of every passage.

3. Study the poem as a whole, and let each pupil point out the beauties of thought or expression which distinguish it as a poetical composition.

4. Now study each stanza, or each independent thought, in its order, and endeavor to understand each word or expression just as the poet intended that it should be understood. The Notes appended to most of the selections are intended rather to suggest the line of study in this regard than to serve as exhaustive aids. The pupil should, so far as possible, investigate for himself and make his own discoveries. Questions concerning the derivation of words and the syntax of sentences are to be discussed only so far as they will aid in the understanding of some passage or of the piece as a whole.

5. Learn some of the most important facts connected with the author's life. What were the conditions under which he wrote this piece? What was the character of his education and of the other influences which shaped his life and distinguished his works? Learn what some of the leading critics have said concerning his works as a poet.

6. Finally, read the poem again, as a whole, and discuss its qualities as a work of literary art, and again point out its distinctive beauties and characteristic excellences.

The extracts given at the beginning of each Century will serve to keep in mind the leading peculiarities which distinguished the poetry of each period; and the lists of poets and their works will be found valuable for purposes of reference. Before beginning the study of the selections both teacher and pupils should read this Introduction carefully.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850). See biographical note, page 52.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"; "The Lady of the Lake"; "Marmion"; "The Lord of the Isles"; short poems.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). See biographical note, page 65.

Robert Southey (1774-1843). "Thalaba"; "Roderick, the last of the Goths"; "Joan of Arc"; "Madoc"; "The Curse of Kehama"; numerous short poems.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834). Chiefly short poems.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864). "Gebir"; and other poems.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844). "Gertrude of Wyoming"; "The Pleasures of Hope"; short poems.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852). "Irish Melodies"; "Lalla Rookh"; "Rhymes on the Road"; "The Loves of the Angels," etc.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). "Francesca Rimini"; "A Legend of Florence"; "Stories in Verse," etc.

Bryan Waller Procter ("Barry Cornwall") (1787-1874). "A Sicilian Story"; "English Songs," etc.

Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel) (1788-1824). "Childe Harold"; "The Giaour"; "Bride of Abydos"; "The Corsair"; "Lara"; "Hebrew Melodies"; "Siege of Corinth"; "Parisina"; "Manfred"; "Don Juan," etc.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). See biographical note, page 81.

John Keats (1795-1821). See biographical note, page 93.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845). Numerous short poems, chiefly humorous.

Lord Macaulay (1800-1859). "Lays of Ancient Rome."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861). "Prometheus Bound"; "Casa Guidi Windows"; "Sonnets from the Portuguese"; "Aurora Leigh"; "Poems before Congress"; "Last Poems."

Alfred Tennyson (Lord Tennyson) (1809-    ). See biographical note, page 35.

Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) (1809-1885). "Historical Poems"; "Poetry for the People"; "Poems of Many Years."

Robert Browning (1812-1889). "Christmas Eve and Easter Day"; "Men and Women"; "The Ring and the Book"; "Balaustion's Adventure"; "Fifine at the Fair"; "Aristophanes' Apology," etc.

William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813-1865). "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers"; "Ballads of Scotland," etc.

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861). "The Bothie"; "Ambarvalia," etc.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). "Andromeda"; many short poems.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1889). "The Strayed Reveller and other Poems"; "Balder."

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864). "Legends and Lyrics"; "A Chaplet of Verses."

Robert Bulwer-Lytton ("Owen Meredith") (1831-1892). "Lucile"; "Marah," etc.

This poem was written in 1832. Considered as a picture, or as a series of pictures, its beauty is unsurpassed. The story which is here so briefly told is founded upon a touching legend connected with the romance of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Tennyson afterwards (in 1859) expanded it into the Idyll called "Elaine," wherein he followed more closely the original narrative as related by Sir Thomas Malory.

Sir Lancelot was the strongest and bravest of the Knights of the Round Table, and for him Elaine, "the fair maid of Astolat," conceived a hopeless passion. "Her love was platonic and pure as that of a child, but it was masterful in its strength." Having learned that Lancelot was pledged to celibacy, she pined away and died. But before her death she called her brother, and having dictated a letter which he was to write, she spake thus:

"'While my body is whole, let this letter be put into my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed with all my richest clothes that I have about me, and so let my bed and all my rich clothes be laid with me in a chariot to the next place whereas the Thames is, and there let me be put in a barge, and but one man with me, such as ye trust to steer me thither, and that my barge be covered with black samite over and over.' . . . So when she was dead, the corpse and the bed and all was led the next way unto the Thames, and there all were put in a barge on the Thames, and so the man steered the barge to Westminster, and there he rowed a great while to and fro, or any man espied."[23:A] At length the King and his Knights, coming down to the waterside, and seeing the boat and the lily maid of Astolat, they uplifted the hapless body of Elaine, and bore it to the hall.

And so the maid was buried, "not as one unknown, nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, and mass and rolling music, like a queen. And the story of her dolorous voyage was blazoned on her tomb in letters gold and azure."

1. wold. An open tract of hilly country, where but few trees are left. This word is more frequently used, however, to designate a forest or thick wood.

2. Camelot. It is supposed that this Camelot was Winchester. It was the seat of King Arthur's court, and visitors are still shown the remains of what appear to have been certain kinds of intrenchments, which the inhabitants call "King Arthur's Palace." Sir Thomas Malory says: "Sir Ballin's sword was put into marble stone, standing it upright as a great millstone, and it swam down the stream to the city of Camelot, that is, in English, Wincheste." There was another Camelot, also King Arthur's capital, on the river Camel, in Cornwall, to which Shakespeare makes reference in King Lear, II, ii. Tennyson, in "Gareth and Lynette," describes the appearance of the city when approached in the early morning:

3. dusk. Produce a ruffled surface. A very rare use of this word. The river referred to is probably the Thames.

4. trailed. Lat. traho, to draw; Dutch treilen, to tow. What picture is presented to the imagination in the first five lines of this stanza? How do the barges differ in appearance and movement from the shallop mentioned two lines below?

5. web. Anything woven. stay. Stop.

6. pad. An easy-going saddle-horse; a palfrey. Describe the picture which is presented in this stanza.

7. Explain the meaning of the Lady's exclamation.

8. red-cross knight. A Knight wearing a red cross. One of King Arthur's Knights. The red-cross Knight in Spenser's Faerie Queene symbolizes holiness.

9. Galaxy. The milky-way. Gr. gala, galaktos, milk.

10. baldric. A belt thrown over the shoulder. From Lat. balteus.

11. bearded meteor. A shooting-star emitting rays of light in the direction in which it moves. The beard of a comet is the light which it throws out in front of it, in distinction from the tail or rays behind.

12. He flashed. His image was thrown upon and reflected from.

13. "Tirra lirra." French tire lire. Probably intended to imitate the note of the lark.

This little lyric forms a part of "an idyl" of the same title, published in 1855. The poet introduces it in the following manner:

In reading this poem, observe how strikingly the sound is made to correspond to the sense.

1. coot. A wild water-fowl, resembling the duck.

2. hern. Heron.

3. bicker. To move unsteadily.

4. thorps. Small villages. A. S. thorpe. From Ger. trupp, a troop.

5. foreland. A promontory.

6. hazel covers. Hazel thickets.

7. gloom. Glimmer, shine obscurely.

8. shingly. Gravelly.

"Thence for nine whole days was I borne by ruinous winds over the teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food. So we stepped ashore and drew water, and straightway my company took their mid-day meal by the swift ships. Now when we had tasted meat and drink, I sent forth certain of my company to go and make search of what manner of men they were who here live upon the earth by bread, and I chose out two of my fellows, and sent a third with them as herald. Then straightway they went and mixed with the men of the lotus-eaters, and so it was that the lotus-eaters devised not death for our fellows, but gave them of the lotus to taste. Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eating men, ever feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of his homeward way. Therefore I led them back to the ships weeping, and sore against their will, and dragged them beneath the benches, and bound them in the hollow barques. But I commanded the rest of my well-loved company to make speed and go on board the swift ships, lest haply any should eat of the lotus and be forgetful of returning."—Homer's Odyssey, ix, 80.

"In this poem, 'The Lotos-Eaters,' the artistic ideal of the young poet (it was written in 1830) found its most finished expression and its culminating point. Here he seems to have attained a consciousness that beyond the ideal which he had adopted there is another, larger, grander, and more satisfying. Nowhere else, perhaps, in the range of poetry, is the trance of a listless life so harmoniously married to appropriate melodies and appropriate accompaniments."—North British Review.

Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, in 1809. His early education was received at home from his father, who was rector of Somersby and vicar of Bennington and Grimsby. He was afterwards sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, at the age of twenty, he received the chancellor's medal for a poem in blank verse, entitled "Timbuctoo." In 1830 he published a small volume of "Poems chiefly Lyrical." A revised edition of this volume, published in 1833, contained "The Lady of Shalott," "The Lotos-Eaters," and others of his best-known short poems. In 1850, upon the death of Wordsworth, he was appointed poet-laureate. In the same year he was married to Emily, daughter of Henry Sellwood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin. Since 1851, Tennyson has resided for the greater part of the time at Farringford, Freshwater, Isle of Wight. In December, 1883, he was made Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater.

"Mr. Tennyson," says R. H. Hutton, "was an artist even before he was a poet; in other words, the eye for beauty, grace, and harmony of effect was even more emphatically one of his original gifts than the voice for poetic utterance itself. This, probably, it is which makes his very earliest pieces appear so full of effort, and sometimes even so full of affectation. They were elaborate attempts to embody what he saw, before the natural voice of the poet had come to him. I think it possible to trace not only a pre-poetic period in his art, but to date the period at which the soul was 'infused' into his poetry, and the brilliant external figures became the dwelling-places of germinating poetic thoughts creating their own music. Curiously enough, the first poem where there is any trace of those musings of the Round Table to which he has directed so much of his maturest genius, is also a confession that the poet was sick of the magic mirror of fancy and its picture-shadows, and was turning away from them to the poetry of human life. Whenever Mr. Tennyson's pictorial fancy has had it in any degree in its power to run away with the guiding and controlling mind, the richness and the workmanship have to some extent overgrown the spiritual principle of his poems. It is obvious, for instance, that even in relation to natural scenery, what his poetical faculty delights in most are rich, luxuriant landscapes, in which either nature or man has accumulated a lavish variety of effects. It is in the scenery of the mill, the garden, the chase, the down, the rich pastures, the harvest-field, the palace pleasure-grounds, the Lord of Burleigh's fair domains, the luxuriant sylvan beauty, bearing testimony to the careful hand of man, 'the summer crisp with shining woods,' that Mr. Tennyson most delights. If he strays to rarer scenes, it is almost in search of richer and more luxuriant loveliness, like the tropical splendors of 'Enoch Arden' and the enervating skies which cheated the Lotos-Eaters of their longing for home."

"Mr. Tennyson," says a writer in the North British Review, "deserves an especial study, not only as a poet, but as a leader and a landmark of popular thought and feeling. As a poet, he belongs to the highest category of English writers; for poetry is the strongest and most vigorous branch of English literature. In this literature his works are evidently destined to secure a permanent place; for they express in language refined and artistic, but not unfamiliar, a large segment of the popular thought of the period over which they range. He has, moreover, a clearly marked if not strongly individualized style, which has served as a model for imitators, and as a starting-point for poets who have sought to improve upon it."

Principal Poems of Tennyson: Charge of the Light Brigade, written in 1854; Dora, 1842; The Dying Swan, 1830; Enoch Arden, 1864; Idylls of the King, 1859-1873,—to be read in the following order: The Coming of Arthur; Gareth and Lynette; Geraint and Enid; Merlin and Vivien; Lancelot and Elaine; The Holy Grail; Pelleas and Ettarre; The Last Tournament; Guinevere; The Passing of Arthur;—In Memoriam, 1850 (131 parts); Locksley Hall, 1842; Locksley Hall Sixty Years Afterwards, 1886; Maud, 1855 (3 parts); The Princess, 1847 (7 parts); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 1852.

Dramatic Pieces: Queen Mary, 1875; Harold, 1876; The Cup, 1881; The Falcon, 1882; Becket, 1884; The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian, 1892.

References: Stedman's Victorian Poets; Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson; Taine's History of English Literature, vol. IV; Kingsley's Miscellanies; Elsdale's Studies in the Idylls; Buchanan's Master Spirits; Tainsh's Studies in Tennyson; Hutton's Essays; Chapman's Companion to In Memoriam; Walters's In Tennyson Land.

"This was composed," says Wordsworth, "during my residence at Town-End, Grasmere (1803-1806). Two years at least passed between the writing of the first four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself, but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere:

"But it was not so much from the source of animal vivacity that my difficulty came, as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to reality. At that time I was afraid of mere processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines, Obstinate questionings, etc. To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invests objects of sight in childhood every one, I believe, if he could look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded it as a presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in Revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favor. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations, and among all persons acquainted with classic literature is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the 'Immortality of the Soul,' I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet."

Lord Houghton says of this poem: "If I am asked what is the greatest poem in the English language, I never for a moment hesitate to say, Wordsworth's 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.'"

Principal Shairp says: "'The Ode on Immortality' marks the highest limit which the tide of poetic inspiration has reached in England within this century, or indeed since the days of Milton."

The idea of the pre-existence of the soul had already been treated by Henry Vaughan in "Silex Scintillans" (1655).

Shelley, in "A Lament," hints at the same thought:

1. The child is father, etc. These lines are from a short poem by Wordsworth, entitled "My Heart leaps up":

Compare with Milton's lines in 'Paradise Regained,' Bk. IV:

2. apparelled. From Fr. pareil, Lat. parilis. Other English words as pair, compare, etc., are similarly derived. To apparel is strictly to pair, to suit, to put like to like.

3. tabor. From Old Fr. tabour, Fr. tambour. Compare Eng. tambourine. Originally from the root tap, Gr. tup, to strike lightly. An ancient musical instrument,—a small one-ended drum having a handle projecting from the frame, by which it was held in the left hand, while it was beaten with a stick held in the right hand.

4. the cataracts. The poet has probably in mind the "ghills" or falls of his own lake country. The metaphor which he uses is a bold one.

5. the echoes. Compare with a similar line by Shelley:

—Adonais, 127.

6. the fields of sleep. "The yet reposeful, slumbering country side."—Hales. "The fields that were dark during the hours of sleep."—Knight.

7. jollity. Merriment. From Lat. jovialis. See Milton's 'L'Allegro,' 26:

8. May. May, with the poets, is the month of gayety. The older poetry especially is full of May raptures. Chaucer says:

9. coronal. A crown of flowers, a chaplet. As at the Roman banquets. On such occasions it was usual for the host to give chaplets to his guests. Festoons of flowers were also sometimes hung over their necks and breasts. The chaplet, or coronal, was regarded as a cheerful ornament and symbol of festivity.

10. the babe leaps up. That is for joy. See the poem, "My heart leaps up," on page 46.

11. there's a tree. Compare this thought with that contained in the following lines:

—Browning's May and Death.

12. pansy. The flower of thought. From Fr. pensée, thought; penser, to think. "It probably derived its name, thought or fancy, from its fanciful appearance."—Nares. Another derivation of the word is from panacea, meaning all-heal, a name given by the Greeks to a plant which was popularly supposed to cure diseases and dispel sorrow. The notion that the pansy is a cure for grief is shown in its common English name, heart's-ease.

13. Our birth is but a sleep. The idea of pre-existence was a favorite one of the ancient philosophers. The doctrine of metempsychosis, a form of the same idea, was held by the ancient Egyptians and is still maintained by the Buddhists. Tennyson says:

14. Behold the child. Pope gives a similar picture:

When Wordsworth wrote of

he probably had in mind Hartley Coleridge, who was then a child of that age. See his poem "To Hartley Coleridge, Six Years Old."

15. humorous stage. See Shakespeare's lines beginning "All the world's a stage," "As You like It," Act ii, sc. 7. The word humorous has here a special sense, such as is used by Ben Jonson in his "Every Man in his Humor."

16. best philosopher . . . mighty prophet! seer blest! Stopford Brooke says: "These expressions taken separately have scarcely any recognizable meaning. By taking them all together, we feel rather than see that Wordsworth intended to say that the child, having lately come from a perfect existence, in which he saw truth directly, and was at home with God, retains, unknown to us, that vision;—and, because he does, is the best philosopher, since he sees at once that which we through philosophy are endeavoring to reach; is the mighty prophet, because in his actions and speech he tells unconsciously the truths he sees, but the sight of which we have lost; is more closely haunted by God, more near to the immortal life, more purely and brightly free because he half shares in the pre-existent life and glory out of which he has come."—Theology in the English Poets.

17. Fallings from us, vanishings. "Fits of utter dreaminess and abstraction, when nothing material seems solid, but everything mere mist and shadow."—Hales.

18. Blank misgivings. Compare Tennyson, "Two Voices":

19. The clouds that gather. Compare these lines with the following from Wordsworth's "Excursion":

This poem was written in 1799, and published the following year.

1. Matthew. This old schoolmaster is described elsewhere by Wordsworth as being "made up of several, both of his class and men of other occupations."

2. wilding. A twig from a wild apple tree.

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, a town in Cumberland, England, April 7, 1770. He went to school at Hawkshead, Lancashire, whence in his seventeenth year he was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge. In January, 1791, he took his degree at the University, but without having distinguished himself in any way. The next fifteen or sixteen months were spent in France, just then in the first wild hopes of the Revolution. "In the aspirations and hopes of the revolutionists he was an ardent sharer; he thought that the world's great age was beginning anew; and with all his soul he hailed so splendid an era. The ultimate degradation of that great movement by wild lawlessness, and then by most selfish ambition, alienated his sympathy for it." Towards the close of 1792 he returned to England, and passed the subsequent time among his friends in London and elsewhere till he settled with his sister at Racedown, Dorsetshire, in 1796. In the following year they removed to Alfoxden. It was during this period that he made the acquaintance of Coleridge. Wordsworth had already published (1793) two little volumes of poetry, entitled Descriptive Sketches and The Evening Walk; but they showed little promise of the triumphs which were to crown his later life. In 1798 the first volume of the Lyrical Ballads was published at Bristol, which purported to be the joint work of himself and Mr. Coleridge, but to which the latter contributed only "The Ancient Mariner" and two or three shorter poems. After some months spent in Germany, Wordsworth and his sister established themselves at Grasmere, in the lake country. In 1800 he published the second volume of the Lyrical Ballads, and in 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson. From 1799 to 1814 he was mainly busy with his great philosophical poem, to be called "The Recluse," "containing views of Man, Nature, and Society," of which "The Prelude" was to be the introduction and "The Excursion" the Second and main Part. He designed that his minor pieces should be so arranged in connection with this work as to "give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in Gothic churches." This plan, however, was never carried out, as of the First and Third Parts only one book was written, and it has never been published. From 1814 until his death Wordsworth lived serenely and quietly at Rydal Mount, making occasional excursions into Scotland and Wales, and a tour upon the continent. In 1843, upon the death of Southey, he was appointed Poet-Laureate. His life was a long one, of steady work and much happiness. He died April 23, 1850.

The distinguishing feature of Wordsworth's poetry is well set forth in his own words:

—Hart-Leap Well, Part II.

"Every great poet," he said, "is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing."

And he avowed that the purpose of his poetry was "to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous."

"Wordsworth," says John Campbell Shairp, "was the first who, both in theory and practice, shook off the trammels of the so-called poetic diction which had tyrannized over English poetry for more than a century. This diction of course exactly represented the half-courtly, half-classical mode of thinking and feeling. As Wordsworth rebelled against this conventionality of spirit, so against the outward expression of it. The whole of the stock phrases and used-up metaphors he discarded, and returned to living language of natural feeling, as it is used by men, instead of the dead form of it which had got stereotyped in books. And just as in his subjects he had taken in from the waste much virgin soil, so in his diction he appropriated for poetic use a large amount of words, idioms, metaphors, till then by the poets disallowed. His shorter poems, both the earlier and the later, are, for the most part, very models of natural, powerful, and yet sensitive English; the language being, like a garment, woven out of, and transparent with, the thought."

Other Poems to be Read: We are Seven; The Pet Lamb; To a Highland Girl; Laodamia; Matthew; The Fountain; The Wishing Gate; To the Small Celandine; "Three Years She Grew"; "She was a Phantom of Delight"; At the Grave of Burns.

References: Shairp's Studies in Poetry and Philosophy; Hazlitt's English Poets; De Quincey's Miscellaneous Works; Literature and Life, by E. P. Whipple; Wordsworth (English Men of Letters), by Goldwin Smith; Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields; Among My Books, Second Series, by J. R. Lowell; Matthew Arnold's Introduction to the Poems of William Wordsworth.

The first part of the unfinished poem, "Christabel," was written in 1797, the second part which, however, left the story apparently as incomplete as before, in 1808. The two parts were first published in 1816. The poem is a picture of white innocence, purity, and truth, pursued and persecuted by the powers of evil. Its incompleteness seems to enhance its interest. "Completion could scarcely have failed to lessen its reality, for the reader could not have endured, neither could the poet's own theory have endured, the sacrifice of Christabel, the triumph of evil over good; and had she triumphed, there is a vulgar well-being in victory which has nothing to do with such a strain."

"Such is the unfinished and unfinishable tale of Christabel—a poem which, despite its broken notes and over-brevity, has raised its author to the highest rank of poets, and which in itself is at once one of the sweetest, loftiest, most spiritual utterances that has ever been framed in English words. We know of no existing poem in any language to which we can compare it. It stands by itself exquisite, celestial, ethereal,—a song of the spheres,—yet full of such pathos and tenderness and sorrowful beauty as only humanity can give."—Blackwood's Magazine, 1871.

It is worthy of note that "Christabel" was the immediate inspiration of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel." "It is to Mr. Coleridge," says Sir Walter, "that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due from the pupil to his master." "But certainly," says Hales, "Scott himself never succeeded in surrounding any one of his works with so fine an atmosphere of glamour and romance."

The language and metrical arrangement of this poem are not only peculiar but are in full accord with the weird and fantastic conception of the piece as a whole. The versification is based upon a principle not commonly practised—that of counting the number of accentuated words in a line instead of the number of syllables. Though the latter varies from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents never exceed four. The result is an irregular, but strangely beautiful harmony of a kind that can hardly be attained through the ordinary methods of versification.

This poem is to be studied for its exquisite beauty, for the true poetic qualities which it possesses and which distinguish it from mere verse. Hence, no explanatory notes are given with reference to any particular passage, nor is it desirable that it should be analyzed with a view to grammatical or philological study. It should be read and reread until the student is thoroughly in accord with the poetic spirit which breathes in and vivifies the entire production. "It was indolence, no doubt, that left the tale half told—indolence and misery—and a poetic instinct higher than all the better impulses of industry and virtuous gain. The subject by its very nature was incomplete; it had to be left a lovely, weird suggestion—a vision for every eye that could see."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery Saint Mary, October 21, 1772. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Jesus College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-two he left the University without having taken a degree. He was an intimate friend of Charles Lamb and Southey, and with the latter formed a wild scheme for the founding of a "Pantisocratic State" in America, which, however, was soon abandoned. His first book of poetry was published in 1794. In 1796 he and Charles Lamb published a volume of poems together. He soon afterwards became acquainted with Wordsworth, and in 1798 the two brought out their famous volume of Lyrical Ballads, containing some of Wordsworth's best pieces and Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." "Christabel," after lying in manuscript for several years, was published in 1816, three editions being issued within twelve months. Coleridge's chief poems were published in 1817 in a collection entitled Sibylline Leaves, so called, he says, "in allusion to the fragmentary and wildly scattered state in which they had long been suffered to remain." At about the same time he was received into the house of Mr. Gillman, a surgeon residing at Highgate, in order to be cured if possible of his excessive use of opium. Here he produced his more important prose works, Aids to Reflection, and On the Constitution of Church and State; and here he died, July 25, 1834.

Coleridge was forever planning and designing,—beginning a work and leaving its completion until to-morrow—which never came. He devoted his attention only sparingly to poetry—and that chiefly during his youth. Later in life he was occupied with political, social, and religious questions. "He was a living Hamlet, full of the most splendid thoughts and the noblest purposes, but a most incompetent doer." "His mind," wrote Southey, "is a perpetual St. Vitus's dance—eternal activity without action."

"Of Coleridge's best verses," says Swinburne, "I venture to affirm that the world has nothing like them, and can never have; that they are of the highest kind, and of their own. They are jewels of the diamond's price, flowers of the rose's rank, but unlike any rose or diamond known."

"His best work is but little," says Stopford Brooke, "but of its kind it is perfect and unique. . . . All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in pure gold."

Other Poems to be Read: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni; Ode to France; Genevieve.

References: Swinburne's Studies and Essays; Shairp's Studies in Poetry; Carlyle's Reminiscences; Coleridge's Biographia Literaria; De Quincey's Essays; Coleridge (English Men of Letters), by H. D. Traill; Hazlitt's English Poets; Hunt's Imagination and Fancy; Chorley's Authors of England; Walter Pater's Apprecia.

This is perhaps the most perfect lyric of its kind in the English language. Every verse is worthy of careful study, and it should be read and reread until its exquisite melody is felt and the subtle thoughts which it embodies fully understood. Yet there is little in the poem which requires annotation—the lark's song itself admits of no explanation.

"For sweetness the 'Ode to a Skylark' is inferior only to Coleridge, in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings,—enthusiastic, enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone,—small, but filling the heavens."—Leigh Hunt.

"Has any one, since Shakespeare and Spenser, lighted on such tender and such grand ecstasies?"—Taine.

The skylark is very generally distributed over the northern portions of the Old World, but is not found in America. Its song in the morning may often be heard when the bird is so high as to be entirely out of sight, and although not finely modulated is remarkably cheerful and prolonged. A person who is accustomed to the song can tell by its variations whether it be ascending, stationary, or descending.

1. profuse. Accent here on the first syllable. From Lat. profundo, to pour forth.

2. Explain the figures of rhetoric employed in this line. The meaning of blue; of wingest.

3. sunken sun. The sun is not yet above the horizon, but the bird has risen so high that it is visible to him, and he "floats and runs" in its golden light.

4. What is the meaning of rains? of rain in the next stanza?

5. wrought. Influenced. A.-S. worhte, wyrcan, to work.

6. sprite. Spirit. In the first stanza he calls the lark a spirit and says it never was a bird; here he calls it "bird or sprite."

7. Chorus hymeneal. See note on "Prothalamion," page 241.

8. Compare this thought with the ideas contained in Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality."

pine. From A.-S. pinan, to pain. Our word pain is derived from the same root.

Pan, as described in the Homeric hymns, is "lord of all the hills and dales": sometimes he ranges along the tops of the mountains; sometimes pursues the game in the valleys, roams through the woods, or floats along the streams; or drives his sheep into a cave, and there plays on his reeds music not to be excelled by that of the sweetest singing birds; and

Keats, in "Endymion," thus apostrophizes Pan:

1. Tmolus. It was Tmolus who acted as umpire in the musical contest between Pan and Apollo. This contest is directly referred to throughout this poem.

2. Peneus. The chief river of Thessaly. It flows through the Vale of Tempe, and between the mountains Ossa and Pelion, emptying finally into the Ægean Sea. (See map of ancient Greece.)

3. Sileni. A name applied to the older satyrs. They were fond of wine and of every kind of sensual pleasure, and hence represented the luxuriant powers of nature, and were connected with the worship of Bacchus.

Sylvans. Deities of the fields and forests.

Fauns. Gods of the shepherds, flocks, and fields. A faun was usually represented as half man and half goat.

4. Apollo. One of the chief divinities of the Greeks; the god of music and song, of prophecy, of the flocks and herds, of the founding of towns, and of the sun. He was the son of Zeus and Leto, and was born on the island of Delos. His favorite oracle was at Delphi.

5. dædal. Labyrinthine, wonderful. From Dædalus, a famous Athenian architect, who designed the labyrinth at Crete in which the Minotaur was kept.

6. Giant wars. The wars of the Titans,—the contest in which Zeus overcame and deposed his father, Chronos, and made himself supreme ruler of the universe. The Titans, who were opposed to him, were overcome, and hurled into the lowest depths of Tartarus.

Mænalus. A mountain in Arcadia, celebrated as the favorite haunt of Pan.

7. maiden. Syrinx, a nymph of Arcadia, devoted to the service of Artemis. "As she was returning one day from the chase, Pan saw and loved her; but when he would address her, she fled. The god pursued. She reached the river Ladon, and, unable to cross it, implored the aid of her sister nymphs; and when Pan thought to grasp the object of his pursuit, he found his arms filled with reeds. At that moment the wind began to agitate the reeds and produced a low musical sound. The god took the hint, cut seven of the twigs, and formed from them his syrinx, or pastoral pipe." See Ovid's Metamorphoses.

"A clever but disreputable professor at Pisa one day related to Shelley the sad story of a beautiful and noble lady, the Contessina Emilia Viviani, who had been confined by her father in a dismal convent of the suburbs, to await her marriage with a distasteful husband." Shelley, fired as ever by a tale of tyranny, was eager to visit the fair captive. The professor accompanied him and Medwin to the convent parlor, where they found her more lovely than even the most glowing descriptions had led them to expect. Nor was she only beautiful. Shelley soon discovered that she had "cultivated her mind beyond what I have ever met with in Italian women"; and a rhapsody composed by her upon the subject of Uranian Love—"Il Vero Amore"—justifies the belief that she possessed an intellect of more than ordinary elevation. He took Mrs. Shelley to see her; and both did all they could to make her convent prison less irksome by frequent visits, by letters, by presents of flowers and books. It was not long before Shelley's sympathy for this unfortunate lady took the form of love, which, however spiritual and Platonic, was not the less passionate. The result was the composition of "Epipsychidion," the most unintelligible of all his poems to those who have not assimilated the spirit of Plato's Symposium and Dante's Vita Nuova.—J. A. Symonds.

W. M. Rossetti characterizes this poem as "a pure outpouring of poetry; a brimming and bubbling fountain of freshness and music, magical with its own spray rainbows."

A year after its composition, Shelley wrote: "The 'Epipsychidion' I cannot look at. If you are curious, however, to hear what I am and have been, it will tell you something thereof. It is an idealized history of my life and feelings."

Epipsychidion. From Gr. epi, upon, and psyche, the soul. This poem is addressed "to the noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia Viviani, now imprisoned in the Convent of St. Anne, Pisa," and was written in 1821.

1. halcyons. Kingfishers. Halcyone was the daughter of Æolus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died she was changed into a bird,—the kingfisher,—and, floating over the sea, she still calls for the lost Ceyx in tones full of plaining and tears. And "whensoever she makes her nest, a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon's weather—days distinguishable among all others for their serenity."

2. Ionian. Greek. See the expression "Under the roof of blue Ionian weather," below. Explain its meaning.

3. for. Since, because.

elysian. Heavenly. Pertaining to Elysium, the islands of the blest, the Elysian fields.

4. age of gold. Compare Milton, "Hymn on the Nativity" (see note 36, page 192. See, also, poem by John Lydgate, page 275).

5. peopled with sweet airs. Filled with sweet music.

6. antenatal dream. See Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" (also, note 13, page 47).

7. Lucifer. Venus when seen in the morning, rising before the sun is called Lucifer, the light-bearer. From Lat. lux, light, and fero, to bear (see note 18, page 189). The same star when seen in the evening, following the sun, is called Hesperus.

8. blue oceans of young air. Explain.

9. paramour. See Milton's "Ode on the Nativity," stanza i.

Milton makes the sun the paramour of the earth; Shelley, the earth the paramour of the sky.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex, August 4, 1792. He was educated at Eton and at Oxford. While a student at the latter place, he wrote a pamphlet, entitled The Necessity of Atheism, which caused his expulsion from college. This occurred in 1811, and in the same year he married Harriet Westbrook, from whom, three years later, he separated. In 1816 he married Mary Godwin. In 1818 he left England for Italy, where he remained until his death by drowning in the gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822. His first considerable poem, "Queen Mab," was published in 1813; "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude," in 1816; "The Revolt of Islam," in 1818; and "Epipsychidion" and "Adonais" in 1821. His two dramas, the "Cenci" and "Prometheus Unbound," were issued, the former in 1819, the latter in 1821.

"Shelley's early rupture with the English world," says Hales, "lost him all the advantages which a fuller experience of it and a longer intercourse with it might have given. That world was no less estranged from him than he from it. It misunderstood and misinterpreted him throughout his career. It covered him with its opprobrium. Assuredly, he was not the man that world painted. It by no means follows that because Shelley did not repeat the ordinary creeds, and even mocked at them, that he believed nothing. Shelley was never in his soul an atheist: it was simply impossible with his nature that he should be; what he did deny and defy was a deity whose worship seemed, as he saw the world, consistent with the reign of selfishness and bigotry."

Lord Macaulay says: "We doubt whether any modern poet has possessed in an equal degree some of the highest qualities of the great ancient masters. The words bard and inspiration, which seem so cold and affected when applied to other modern writers, have a perfect propriety when applied to him. He was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not improbably, have given to the world some great work of the very highest rank in design and execution."

Leigh Hunt says: "Assuredly, had he lived, he would have been the greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth. In general, if Coleridge is the sweetest of our poets, Shelley is at once the most ethereal and most gorgeous—the one who has clothed his thoughts in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent words and imagery. His poetry is as full of mountains, seas, and skies, of light, and darkness, and the seasons, and all the elements of our being, as if Nature herself had written it, with the Creation and its hopes newly cast around her, not, it must be confessed, without too indiscriminate a mixture of great and small, and a want of sufficient shade—a certain chaotic brilliancy, 'dark with excess of light.'"

Another English poet says: "Shelley outsang all poets on record but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as divine as nature's, and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing-god; his thoughts, words, deeds, all sang together."

"The poet who creates a new ideal, and fills men's hearts with the flame of a divine desire, is a practical force in the stream of human development—and this Shelley has done. So much of his poetry is full of the tender melancholy of the moonlight he loved, that the world is still half blind to his highest bardic character, as the poet of a spiritual dawn, the eager spirit who flies forward—

Even his moonlight seems to reflect the beams of some unrisen sun; and his sunlight has all the ethereal exhilaration of that of the first hours of a glorious day."—John Todhunter.

Other Poems to be Read: Adonais; The Sensitive Plant; The Cloud; Mount Blanc; To Wordsworth; The Euganean Hills; Liberty; Alastor; Prometheus Unbound.

References: De Quincey's Essays; Jeaffreson's The Real Shelley; Shelley (English Men of Letters), by J. A. Symonds; Leigh Hunt's Imagination and Fancy; Rossetti's Memoir of Shelley; Dowden's Life of P. B. Shelley; Moore's Life of Lord Byron; Middleton's Shelley and his Writings; Medwin's Life of Shelley; Trelawney's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron; Todhunter's Shelley: A Study.

"This poem," says Leigh Hunt, "was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter."

1. Lethe-wards. That is, towards Lethe. Lethe was one of the rivers of Hell. Its name means "forgetfulness." Milton describes it thus:

—Paradise Lost, ii, 583.

2. Dryad. A wood-nymph. From Gr. drus, an oak tree. The life of the Dryad was supposed to be bound up with that of her tree.

"The quickening power of the soul, like Martha, is 'busy about many things,' or, like a Dryad, living in a tree."—Sir John Davis.

3. Provençal song. Song of the troubadours, a school of lyric poets that flourished in Provence, in the south of France, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. A love song.

4. Hippocrene. The "Fountain of the Horse" (Fons Caballinus). A fountain on Mount Helicon, Bœotia, sacred to the Muses. It was said to have been produced by the horse Pegasus striking the ground with his feet. Its waters were supposed to be a source of poetical inspiration.

Longfellow, in "The Goblet of Life," says:

5. Bacchus and his pards. Bacchus was frequently represented as riding on the back of a leopard, a tiger, or a lion, or in a chariot drawn by panthers.

pards. Spotted beasts.

See Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," third stanza, page 160.

6. Compare with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act ii, sc. i:

7. darkling. In the dark. The word is very rarely used.

8. requiem. A dirge, or funeral song. "So called from the first word in the Catholic mass for the dead, Requiem æternum dona iis Domine (Give eternal rest to them, O Lord)."—Brand.

become a sod. Compare with Ecclesiastes, xii, 7: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was."

9. alien corn. See Ruth, ii. Why alien corn? Longfellow, in his poem on "Flowers," says:

"The Eve of St. Agnes" is one of the finest of Keats's shorter poems. Leigh Hunt describes it as "the most complete specimen of his genius; exquisitely loving; young, but full-grown poetry of the rarest description; graceful as the beardless Apollo; glowing and gorgeous with the colors of romance." The stanzas here quoted, while comprising the main portion of the story, are not quite half of the entire poem.

Madeline, the beautiful daughter of a rude and rich old baron, is secretly betrothed to Porphyro, a young man whom her father has sworn to slay. On the eve of St. Agnes a great feast is in progress in the baron's castle. Porphyro, at the risk of his life, "comes across the moors, with heart on fire for Madeline." With the aid of the old nurse, Angela, he gains admission into the castle and is concealed in a closet, where he conceives the plan for their elopement. In the meanwhile, Madeline, having danced with her father's guests, retires to her room, her mind full of the thought of Porphyro, and intent upon testing the truth of the belief, then current, that on this evening, maidens might, if they performed certain ceremonies and forms, be vouchsafed a sight of their future husbands.

St. Agnes was a young virgin of Palermo, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of thirteen, in the Diocletian persecution, about a.d. 304. Her feast was celebrated on the 21st of January.

With reference to the versification of this poem, see what is said of the Spenserian stanza, page 232. There are many imitations of Spenser in these verses.

The student is desired to discover for himself the peculiarities of thought, of feeling, of expression, which give interest and beauty to this production. The following are a few of the words and expressions whose meaning he should study: "Gules"; "taint"; "vespers"; "poppied"; "Swart Paynims"; "Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness"; "Morphean amulet"; "affray"; "azure-lidded sleep"; "argosy"; "missal"; "tinct"; "Fez"; "Samarcand"; "Lebanon"; "eremite"; "witless"; "alarum"; "entoiled in woofed phantasies"; "La belle dame sans mercy"; "heart-shaped and vermeil dyed"; "Of haggard seeming"; "arras."

John Keats was born October 29, 1795, in Moorfields, London. He was sent to school at Enfield, where he gained the rudiments of a classical education; but, his father having died when John was a mere child, he was apprenticed at an early age to a surgeon in Edmonton. When seventeen years old a copy of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" fell into his hands, and the perusal of that great poem was the beginning, for him, of a new life. He felt the poetic instinct within him, and resolved that he too would be a poet. In 1817 he published a small volume of poems, which attracted but little attention; and in 1818 his more ambitious effort, "Endymion," was presented to the world. The latter poem was unkindly received by the great reviews. The author was advised to "go back to his gallipots," and told that "a starved apothecary was better than a starved poet." A story was long current that these severe criticisms induced Keats's early death, but this is entirely improbable. He continued writing, although consumption, a hereditary disease in his family, had already begun its work upon him. He published "The Eve of St. Agnes" in 1820, and had made some progress with a noble poem, entitled "Hyperion," which Lord Byron declared to be "actually inspired by the Titans, and as sublime as Æschylus." In September of that year he sailed for Italy, but the hope of prolonging life by a change of climate proved to be vain. On the 27th of February, 1821, he died at Rome.

"We can hardly be wrong in believing," says Masson, "that had Keats lived to the ordinary age of man, he would have been one of the greatest of all our poets. As it is, I believe we shall all be disposed to place him very near indeed to our very best."

"That which was deepest in his mind," says Stopford Brooke, "was the love of loveliness for its own sake, the sense of its rightful and pre-eminent power; and, in the singleness of worship which he gave to Beauty, Keats is especially the artist, and the true father of the latest modern school of poetry."

Other Poems to be Read: Endymion; Ode on a Grecian Urn; Lamia; Hyperion; To Autumn; Hymn to Apollo; Isabella.

References: Keats (English Men of Letters), by Sidney Colvin; Keats, by W. M. Rossetti; Matthew Arnold's Essay on Keats, in Ward's English Poets; Shairp's Studies in Poetry.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744). See biographical note, page 155.

Thomas Parnell (1679-1718). "The Hermit"; short poems.

Edward Young (1684-1765), "Night Thoughts"; "The Last Day"; "Resignation."

Allan Ramsay (1686-1758). "The Gentle Shepherd": "Scots Songs"; "Fables and Tales."

John Gay (1688-1732). "The Beggar's Opera"; "The Shepherd's Week"; "Trivia"; "Rural Sports"; fables, and other short poems.

Matthew Green (1696-1737). "The Grotto"; "The Spleen."

John Dyer (1698-1758). "Grongar Hill"; "The Fleece."

Robert Blair (1699-1746). "The Grave."

James Thomson (1700-1748). "The Seasons"; "The Castle of Indolence."

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), "The Vanity of Human Wishes"; "London."

Richard Glover (1712-1785). "Leonidas"; "Admiral Hosier's Ghost"; "The Athenaid."

William Shenstone (1714-1763). "The Schoolmistress"; "Pastoral Ballads."

Thomas Gray (1716-1771). See biographical note, page 139.

William Collins (1721-1759). Odes and other short poems.

Mark Akenside (1721-1770). "The Pleasures of the Imagination."

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). See biographical note, page 128.

Thomas Warton (1728-1790). "The Pleasures of Melancholy"; "The Triumph of Isis"; short poems.

William Cowper (1731-1800). See biographical note, page 122.

Charles Churchill (1731-1764). "The Prophecy of Famine"; "The Rosciad."

James Beattie (1735-1803). "The Minstrel."

Robert Fergusson (1750-1774). Short Scottish poems.

Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770). "Poems of Thomas Rowlie"; short poems.

George Crabbe (1754-1832). "Tales of the Hall"; "The Village"; "The Parish Register"; "Tales in Verse."

William Blake (1757-1827). "Songs of Innocence"; "Songs of Experience"; "Poetical Sketches."

Robert Burns (1759-1796). See biographical note, page 111.

This poem, composed in 1785, is written partly in the Scottish dialect, partly in English. The livelier passages are in the poet's vernacular; the loftier or more solemn parts in the language of books. This distinction was doubtless made because Burns disliked to treat his higher themes in a merely colloquial manner, fearing to belittle them by so doing. The household described was probably that of the poet's own father; it was at least a typical Scotch peasant's household, with which no one was more familiar. Gilbert Burns, in a letter to Dr. Currie, says: "Although the 'Cotter' in the Saturday Night, is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotions, and exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us ever went 'At service out amang the neibors roun'.' Instead of our depositing our 'sair-won penny-fee' with our parents, my father labored hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home."

The influence of Gray and Goldsmith is very apparent in more than one passage in this poem.

"Robert had frequently remarked to me," said his brother, "that there was something particularly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship God,' used by a decent, sober head of a family introducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for 'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' The hint of the plan and title of the poem is taken from Ferguson's 'Farmer's Ingle.'"

1. Cotter. "One who inhabits a cot, or cottage, dependent on a farm."—Jamieson.

2. R. Aiken. A friend with whom Burns had been brought into contact during the Old and New Light Controversy.

3. See Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," eighth stanza.

4. lays. Songs; probably from the same root as the German lied. The word was originally applied to a form of elegiac French poetry, much imitated by the English.

5. train. A favorite word with the poets at this time. Goldsmith uses it no fewer than six times in the "Deserted Village." The original meaning is something drawn along; from Lat. traho, to draw.

6. sugh. Also spelled sough. Whistling sound, murmur. Derived from the same root as sigh, for which word it is used by Burns in his lines, "On the Battle of Sherriffmuir":

7. Compare with Gray's "Elegy," line 3:

8. Toil was perhaps pronounced tile, thus properly rhyming with beguile. Johnson, in "London," says:

9. bairns. From A.-S. bearns, children.

10. ca'. Drive, follow. Probably not from the same root as our common word call. Kingsley uses it in this sense in the line:

11. neibor. Neighboring. Milton, in "Comus," uses the expressions: "Some neighbor woodman," "some neighbor villager"; and Shakespeare says: "A neighbor thicket" ("Love's Labour Lost"), and "neighbor room" ("Hamlet").

12. deposit. Pronounced here dep´o-zit.

13. penny-fee. Fee, wages, from A.-S. feoh, cattle. "Cattle," says Bosworth, "was the first kind of property; and, by bartering, this word came to signify money in general." So, too, the word penny is from A.-S. penig, Icelandic peningr, cattle. The word penny, as in this country the word dollar, is used indefinitely for money.

14. Observe that in quoting the words of the Cotter the poet partially drops the Ayrshire dialect and uses a purer English.

15. ben. Within. The inner part of the house; from O. E. binnan, within. Its opposite is but, the outside of the house.

16. kye. Cattle, from O.-E. cu, or kie. Kine is derived from the same root, and probably cow.

17. hawkie. This word, says Hales, "denotes, properly, a cow with a white face. So, in Northumberland, bawsand was used of an animal with a white spot on its forehead, and crummie of a cow with crooked horns."

18. sin' lint was i' the bell. Since flax was in bloom. That is, the cheese was a year old last flax-blossoming time.

19. ha'-Bible. The hall Bible—the Bible kept in the best room.

20. bonnet. This word in Scotch denotes a man's head-covering. In early English it was used in the same sense.

21. beets. Feeds,—that is, gives fuel to the flame.

—Burns's Epistle to Davie, a brother poet.

The word is probably from A.-S. betan, to better, to mend; from which, also, we have the words beat, to excel, better, best, etc.

22. Burns refers the reader to Pope's "Windsor Forest" for this quotation. He probably had in mind the line in the "Essay on Man":

23. sacerdotal stole. A long, narrow scarf with fringed ends, and richly embroidered, worn by the clergy upon special occasions. Sacerdotal, from Lat. sacerdos, a priest. Stole, from Lat. stola, a long dress worn by Roman women over their tunic and fastened with a girdle.

24. Pope's "Essay on Man," Epistle iv, line 247.

25. William Wallace (1270-1305), the Scotch national hero was, like Burns, a native of Ayrshire.

1. Is there anything in honest poverty to cause one to hang his head, etc.?

2. Explain lines 7 and 8 fully.

3. gowd, gold.

4. birkie, fellow.

5. coof, fool.

6. aboon his might, above his power.

7. maunna fa', may not get.

8. gree, palm, supremacy.

"Burns was not only the poet of love, but also of the new excitement about man. Himself poor, he sang the poor. Neither poverty nor low birth made a man the worse—the man was 'a man for a' that.'"—Stopford Brooke.

Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1759. His childhood and youth were spent in poverty on his father's farm, where he learned to plough, reap, mow, and thresh in the barn, but where opportunities for education were such only as Scottish peasants know. In 1784 his father died, and he attempted to manage a farm of his own at Mossgiel. The experiment proving to be a failure, he resolved to leave Scotland, and secured an appointment to a clerkship in Jamaica. Just before the time set for his departure, he learned of the success of a volume of his poems which had just been published at Kilmarnock; and, instead of departing for the West Indies, he made a visit to Edinburgh. He was welcomed by the best society, and received at once into the literary circles of the Scottish capital. "His name and fame flashed like sunshine over the land: the shepherd on the hill, the maiden at her wheel, learned his songs by heart, and the first scholars of Scotland courted his acquaintance." A second edition of his poems was published in 1787, and with the proceeds—about $2500—he took a farm at Ellisland, in Nithsdale. But his habits were such that he made sad failure a second time in the experiment of farming; and, after two years of mismanagement, to eke out his scanty income he accepted an appointment as exciseman. In 1791, "unfortunately both for his health and for his reputation," he removed to Dumfries, where, five years later, he died.

"While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves, this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye; for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines."—Carlyle.

"Burns is not the poet's poet, which Shelley no doubt meant to be, or the philosopher's poet, which Wordsworth, in spite of himself, is. He is the poet of homely human nature, not half so homely or prosaic as it seems. His genius, in a manner all its own, associates itself with the fortunes, experiences, memorable moments, of human beings whose humanity is their sole patrimony; to whom 'liberty and whatever, like liberty, has the power

is their portion in life; for whom the great epochs and never-to-be-forgotten phases of existence are those which are occasioned by emotions inseparable from the consciousness of existence. For the great majority of his readers, and therefore for the mass of human beings, the sympathy which exists between him and them is sympathy relative to their strongest and deepest feelings, and this is sympathy out of which personal affection naturally springs, and in the strength of which it cannot but grow strong."—John Service.

"Burns was not like Shakespeare in the range of his genius, but there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and unaffected character about him. With but little of Shakespeare's imagination or inventive power, he had the same life of mind; within the narrow circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his poetry flows as healthily and vigorously. He had an eye to see, a heart to feel,—no more. His pictures of good fellowship, of social life, of quaint humor, are equal to anything; they come up to nature, and they cannot go beyond it."—Hazlitt.

—Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Other Poems to be Read: Bannockburn; Auld Lang Syne; Tam O' Shanter; To a Mouse; The Jolly Beggars; Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon; Highland Mary; Address to the Deil; To Mary in Heaven.

References: Carlyle's Essay on Robert Burns; Burns (English Men of Letters), by J. C. Shairp; Hazlitt's English Poets.

Boadicea was queen of the Iceni, a powerful and warlike tribe of Britons, about the middle of the first century. Upon the death of her husband, Prasutagus, her kingdom was seized by the Romans, and she herself, for some real or imaginary offence, was publicly scourged. During the absence of the Roman governor from that part of England, Boadicea raised an immense army, burned the city of London, and put 70,000 Romans to the sword. She afterwards, with 230,000 troops, met the Roman army, under Suetonius, in the field, and although the Romans could muster only 10,000 soldiers, the British army was defeated, and the queen, in despair, ended her own life by taking poison.

In this poem, Cowper represents the queen as, soon after her shameful treatment by the Romans, seeking counsel from one of the native priests. The Druid prophesies the destruction of Rome and the future greatness of Britain.

1. Sounds, not arms. Does the poet allude to the cultivation of oratory and poetry among the Romans and the neglect of military affairs?

2. Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings. What do these expressions mean? To what do they refer?

3. Explain the prophecy included in this stanza.

4. hurled them. Hurled what?

5. This stanza, evidently a part of the imprecation which Boadicea "hurled" at her enemies, ought to be enclosed with quotation marks, but in most versions of the poem it appears without them.

This, one of the most exquisite poems in the language, was written by Cowper in "the last glimmering of the evening light," before his mind was wholly overwhelmed by the final attack of insanity. "Every line is instinct with a profound and chastened feeling, to which it would be difficult to find a parallel. There is not a phrase, not a word, which jars upon the most susceptible ear, not a tinge of exaggeration, not a touch that is excessive. The fact that he who gave forth these supreme utterances of filial love was old himself when he did it, brings into the relationship a strange, tender equality which is marvellously touching."

1. steep. Imbue. From Ger. stippen. From the same root as dip, with the letter s prefixed.

2. Elysian reverie. Heavenly meditation. See note on Elysium, page 79.

3. when I learnt. Cowper was only six years old when his mother died.

4. concern. Distress, anxiety.

5. Nearly fifty years after his mother's death, Cowper wrote: "I can truly say that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day) in which I do not think of her; such was the impression her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short."

6. plum. Perhaps the gravest fault in this poem is the frequent intermixture, as in these two lines, of trivial thoughts and circumstances with those of a more noble character.

7. Explain the metaphor which the poet attempts to carry through these three lines. Brakes = breaks, interruptions. What is the meaning of humor?

8. as a gallant bark. Observe the beauty of the simile in these twelve lines, also of the simile which follows.

9. Probably misquoted from "The Dispensary," by Samuel Garth (1670-1719):

10. this mimic show. Explain the meaning of this expression.

William Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, November 26, 1731. His father was the rector of the parish, and his mother was Ann Donne of the family of the famous John Donne. Cowper was educated at a private school and afterwards at Westminster. It was intended that he should follow the profession of law, and, after the completion of his studies at Westminster, he entered the Middle Temple and was articled to a solicitor. At the age of twenty-two, through the influence of his uncle, Major Cowper, he was appointed to two clerkships in the House of Lords. The excitement brought on by this occurrence, together with an unhappy love affair, induced an attack of insanity, from which he suffered for more than a year. In 1773 he suffered from a second attack of insanity, which continued for sixteen months. It was not until 1780, when in his fiftieth year, that he began really to write poetry. His first volume was published in 1782, and comprised, besides several shorter pieces, the three poems, "Conversation," "Retirement," and "Table Talk." His second volume appeared in 1785, and contained "The Task," "Tirocinium," and the ballad of "John Gilpin," which had already become famous through the recitations of one Henderson, an actor. Cowper's translation of Homer was completed and published in 1791. From that time until his death in 1800 he suffered from hopeless dejection, regarding himself as an object of divine wrath, a condemned and forsaken outcast.

Cowper was not a great poet; but he was the first to abandon the mechanical versification and conventional phrases of the artificial poets, to find inspiration and guidance in nature. It may be said that he lacked creative power; but he possessed a quickness of thought, a depth of feeling, and a certain manliness and sincerity, which lifted him above the level of the ordinary versifiers of his time.

Other Poems to be Read: The Castaway; John Gilpin; The Task; The Loss of the Royal George.

References: Southey's Life of William Cowper; Cowper (English Men of Letters), by Goldwin Smith; Hazlitt's English Poets; Macaulay's Essay on Moore's Life of Byron; Life of Cowper, in the "Globe Edition" of his works.

1. The village preacher.—"This picture of the village pastor," says Irving, "which was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. . . . To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practise."

2. passing rich. Exceedingly rich. The word is a common one among the poets. "Is she not passing fair?" (Shakespeare, "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iv, sc. 4); "How passing sweet is solitude" (Cowper, "Retirement").

3. forty pounds. In his dedication of "The Traveller," Goldsmith refers to his brother Henry as "a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year."

4. broken soldier. See "The Soldier's Dream," Campbell.

5. The simile included in these four lines, says Lord Lytton, is translated almost literally from a poem by the Abbé de Chaulieu, who died in 1720. "Every one must own," adds he, "that, in copying, Goldsmith wonderfully improved the original."

6. The village master.—The portrait here drawn of the village schoolmaster is from Goldsmith's own teacher, Thomas Byrne, with whom he was placed when six years old. "Byrne had been educated for a pedagogue," says Irving, "but had enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy.

"There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories of which he was generally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for wandering and seeking adventure.

"Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore."

noisy mansion. The old-time school-room was a noisy place, the pupils studying their lessons aloud, and but little care being taken to secure quietness at any time.

7. boding. Foreboding; seeing that which is about to happen. From A.-S. bodian, to announce, to foretell.

8. village. Villagers.

9. terms and tides. Times and seasons. presage. Foreknow. From Lat. pre, before, and sagio, to perceive.

10. gauge. Measure liquids. The humor in this and in some other expressions in these verses is too apparent to require comment.

Oliver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Leyden. After travelling on foot through portions of Western Europe, he made his way to London, where he was in turn assistant to a chemist, usher in a school at Peckham, and literary hack for one of the leading monthly publications. He afterwards contributed many articles, both in prose and poetry, to the leading periodicals of the time. He wrote "The Traveller" in 1764, and "The Deserted Village" and The Vicar of Wakefield in 1770. He died in his chambers in Brick Court, London, April 4, 1774. For a full account of his life, read Macaulay's Essay on Oliver Goldsmith.

"The naturalness and ease of Goldsmith's poetry," says Edward Dowden, "are those of an accomplished craftsman. His verse, which flows towards the close of the period with such a gentle yet steady advance, is not less elaborated than that of Pope; and Goldsmith conceived his verse more in paragraphs than in couplets. His artless words were, each one, delicately chosen; his simple constructions were studiously sought." And Sir Walter Scott said of him: "It would be difficult to point out one among the English poets less likely to be excelled in his own style. Possessing much of Pope's versification without the monotonous structure of his lines; rising sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflections; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous competitors whom the friendship or flattery of the present age is so hastily arraying against him."

Other Poems to be Read: The Traveller; the rest of The Deserted Village; Retaliation.

References: Irving's Life of Goldsmith; Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith; Macaulay's Essay on Goldsmith; Thackeray's English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century; De Quincey's Eighteenth Century; Hazlitt's English Poets; Goldsmith (English Men of Letters), by William Black.

This poem was published in 1757. "It is founded," says Gray, "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." The argument is as follows: "The army of Edward I., as they march through a deep valley, and approach Mount Snowdon, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the desolation and misery which he had brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardor of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valor in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its feet."

The tradition upon which the poem is said to be founded, if it ever had any existence, is in great part mythical. Edward I. did indeed conquer Wales, but there is no evidence that he massacred or even persecuted the Welsh bards. A hundred years after his time their number and influence had not been diminished.

This poem is a good example of an English ode constructed strictly after Greek models. It will be observed that it is written, not in uniform stanzas, but in three uniform parts, each of which contains three stanzas. The first of these parts is called the Strophe, or Turn; the second, the Antistrophe, or Counter-turn; the third, the Epode, or After-song. The origin of these terms may be traced to the use of the ode as an important part of the entertainment presented in the ancient Greek theatre. The Strophe was sung while the chorus moved from one side of the orchestra to the other; the Antistrophe while the reversed movement was being made; and the Epodos after the singers had returned to their original position. The accurate perception of harmony and the relationship between the different parts of the choral ode, which enabled the Greeks to enter thoroughly into its enjoyment, is unknown among moderns. Hence, there have been but few attempts in the English language to construct odes strictly after the Greek model. Most of our odes are poems relating to themes of greater or less varying length, and divided into many irregular stanzas of varying lengths and metres. Such are Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," and Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," all of which are odes in form and style, although differing from their Greek prototype and from one another. Of all English poets, none have worked so thoroughly on the ancient model as Gray, although to Congreve must be given the honor of being the first to attempt this species of English composition.

1. crimson wing. Explain the meaning of this line.

2. Compare this line with Shakespeare, "King John," Act v, sc. 1:

3. hauberk. From A.-S. heals, the neck, and beorgan, to protect. "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."—Gray.

4. Cambria. Wales. An ancient legend says it was so called from Camber, the son of Brute. This legendary king of Britain divided his dominions among his three sons: to Locrin he gave the southern part (England), which was called Loegria; to Albanact the northern (Scotland), Albania; and to Camber, the western (Wales), Cambria.

5. Snowdon. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Cragium-eryri. It included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire as far east as the river Conway."—Gray. It was in the spring of 1283 that the army of Edward I. forced its way through the defiles of these mountains.

shaggy. See "Lycidas," 54:

6. Gloster. "Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward."—Gray.

7. Mortimer. Edward, or Edmond, de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, one of King Edward's ablest leaders. It was by one of his knights that the Welsh prince Llewellyn was slain in December, 1282.

8. rock. One of the heights of Snowdon, probably Pen-maen-mawr, the extreme northern point of the range, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway River.

9. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings (both believed originals), one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans's collection at Paris."—Gray.

10. Explain the meaning of this line.

11. Hoel. A Welsh prince and famous bard, some of whose poems are still extant. Cadwallo and Urien, named below, were other celebrated bards. The name of Modred is not so well known; it is possible that Gray refers to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, called Merlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin—the form of the name being changed for the sake of euphony." It is not entirely clear whether the Llewellyn mentioned here was a bard, or the famous but unfortunate prince who lost his life in the war with King Edward. (See note 7, above.) Is it the lay sung in memory of mild Llewellyn? Or is it the lay which soft Llewellyn sang?

12. hushed the stormy main. Shakespeare says:

—Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii, sc. 1.

13. Plinlimmon. A group of lofty mountains in Wales. The name is probably a corruption of Pum-lumon, "the fire-beacons," so-called because there was a beacon on each of the five peaks composing the group.

14. Arvon's shore. Caernarvon, or Caer yu Arvon, means the camp in Arvon. The shore referred to is that of Caernarvon, on the mainland, opposite the island of Anglesey.

15. eagle. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh, Craigian-eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told), the highest point of Snowdon is called 'the Eagle's Nest.'"—Gray.

16. Dear as the ruddy drops. Shakespeare has it:

—Julius Cæsar, Act ii, sc. 1.

17. I see them sit. See Milton's "Lycidas," 52:

griesly. Grisly. From the A.-S. grisli, dreadful.

18. Weave the warp, etc. As the Fates were represented by the ancient Greeks as spinning the destinies of men, so the Norns in the Norse mythology are said to weave the destinies of the heroes who die in battle.

—The Fatal Sisters, translated by Gray, from the Norse.

19. "Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle."—Gray. The murder of the king occurred on the night of September 21, 1327. Berkeley Castle stands at the southeast end of the town of Berkeley, about one and one-half miles from the Severn River. It was built before the time of Henry II., and is still inhabited by a descendant of its founders.

20. She-wolf of France. Isabel of France, the wife of Edward II. Shakespeare applies this epithet to Margaret, the queen of Henry VI.:

—3 Henry VI., Act i, sc. 4.

21. Edward III., the son of Queen Isabel, proved indeed to be a scourge to France.

22. "Death of that king (Edward III.), abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress."—Gray.

23. sable warrior. "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father."—Gray.

24. The magnificence of the first years of Richard II.'s reign is figured in this and the following lines.

25. Thirst and Famine scowl. When Richard II. died in prison, his body was brought to St. Paul's, and "the face was left uncovered, to meet rumors that he had been assassinated by his keeper, Sir Piers Exon." But the older writers assert that he was starved to death.

26. din of battle. "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster."—Gray.

bray. From Gr. bracho, to clash.

27. towers of Julius. "The oldest part of that structure (the Tower of London) is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar."—Gray.

28. meek usurper. "Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown."—Gray. The references in the preceding line are to Henry's "consort," Queen Margaret, and his father, Henry V.

29. The rose of snow, twined with her blushing foe. The reference is to the union of the houses of York and Lancaster after the War of the Roses.

30. bristled boar. Richard III., so called from his badge of a silver boar. So Shakespeare:

—Richard III., Act iv, sc. 5.

—Ibid. Act v, sc. 2.

31. The bard's vision of the future has come to an end, and he again addresses the king.

32. Half of thy heart. "Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well known."—Gray.

Tennyson, in the "Dream of Fair Women," speaks of Queen Eleanor as

33. The bard's visions are resumed, and he sees the glories which were ushered in with the advent of the Tudor line. Henry VII.'s paternal grandfather was Sir Owen Tewdwr of Pernnyuydd, in Anglesey, whose mother was of royal British blood. "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."—Gray.

34. a form divine. Elizabeth.

35. awe-commanding face. "Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialiuski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princlie cheekes.'"—Gray.

36. Taliessin was a famous Welsh bard who flourished in the sixth century. It is said that some of his works are still preserved by his countrymen.

37. See "Faerie Queene," 1:

38. buskined measures. The tragic drama as represented by Shakespeare. So Milton speaks ("Il Penseroso," 102) of the "buskind stage." The buskin was the Greek cothurnus, a boot with high heels, designed to add stature and dignity to the tragic actor.

39. Fond. Foolish. This is the original meaning of the word, and is so used by the older poets.

40. he repairs. So Milton:

Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London, December 26th, 1716. Through the help of his mother's brother, who was Assistant-Master at that famous school, he received his primary education at Eton, and in 1735 entered St. Peter's College, Cambridge. In 1738 he left the University without taking a degree, intending to study law at the Inner Temple. Soon afterwards, however, he accompanied Horace Walpole on a tour through France and Italy, and spent the greater part of two years in Paris, Rome, and Florence. Upon his return to England, finding himself possessed of a life-long competency, he resolved to give up the law and devote himself entirely to self-culture. He settled at Cambridge, and gave all his time to study and to the cultivation of his mind. The first of his poems to appear in print was the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," published in 1747. His "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was not published until 1750, although it had been written and handed about in manuscript several years before. The post of Poet-Laureate was offered him in 1757, on the death of Colley Cibber; but he did not accept it. In 1768 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, but the state of his health was such that he was never permitted to lecture. He died, July 29th, 1771, at the age of fifty-four.

"He was certainly the most accomplished man of his time," says Hales, "and was something much more than accomplished. His learning was not only wide but deep; his taste, if perhaps too fastidious, was pure and thorough; his genius was of no mean degree or order; his affections were of the truest and sincerest. . . . His poems are works of refinement rather than of passion; but yet they are inspired with genuine sentiment. They are no doubt extremely artificial in form; the weight of their author's reading somewhat depresses their originality; he can with difficulty escape from his books to himself; but yet there is in him a genuine poetical spirit. His poetry, however elaborated, is sincere and truthful. If the exterior is what Horace might have called over-filed and polished, the thought is mostly of the simplest and naturalest."

Matthew Arnold says: "Gray's production was scanty, and scanty it could not but be. Even what he produced was not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone or almost alone in his age. Gray said himself that the style he aimed at was 'extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical.' Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray may be said to have reached, in his style, the excellence at which he aimed."

Cowper writes, "I have been reading Gray's works, and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of sublime."

Lowell says: "Gray, if we may believe the commentators, has not an idea, scarcely an epithet, that he can call his own, and yet he is, in the best sense, one of the classics of English literature."

And Sir James Mackintosh says: "Of all English poets he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetic style seemed to be capable. It may be added that he deserves the comparatively trifling praise of having been the most learned poet since Milton."

Other Poems to be Read: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; On a Distant Prospect of Eton College; The Progress of Poesy; Ode on Spring.

References: Johnson's Lives of English Poets; Gray (English Men of Letters), by Edmund Gosse; Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets; Roscoe's Essays.