Chapter 19

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquish'd one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway; I love the brooks which down their channels fret Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

W. WORDSWORTH.

288.

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory-- Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap'd for the beloved's bed; And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

P.B. SHELLEY.

PALGRAVE'S NOTES.

Poem 2. _Rouse Memnon's mother_: Awaken the Dawn from the dark Earth and the clouds where she is resting. Aurora in the old mythology is mother of Memnon (the East), and wife of Tithonus (the appearances of Earth and Sky during the last hours of Night). She leaves him every morning in renewed youth, to prepare the way for Phoebus (the Sun), whilst Tithonus remains in perpetual old age and grayness.

_by Peneus' streams_: Phoebus loved the Nymph Daphne whom he met by the river Peneus in the vale of Tempe. This legend expressed the attachment of the Laurel (Daphne) to the Sun, under whose heat the tree both fades and flourishes. It has been thought worth while to explain these allusions, because they illustrate the character of the Grecian Mythology, which arose in the Personification of natural phenomena, and was totally free from those debasing and ludicrous ideas with which, through Roman and later misunderstanding or perversion, it has been associated.

_Amphion's lyre_: He was said to have built the walls of Thebes to the sound of his music.

_Night like a drunkard reels_: Compare Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene 3: "The gray-eyed morn smiles," etc.--It should be added that three lines, which appeared hopelessly misprinted, have been omitted in this Poem.

Poem 4.

_Time's chest_: in which he is figuratively supposed to lay up past treasures. So in Troilus, Act III. Scene 3, "Time hath a wallet at his back," etc.

Poem 5.

A fine example of the high-wrought and conventional Elizabethan Pastoralism, which it would be ludicrous to criticise on the ground of the unshepherdlike or unreal character of some images suggested. Stanza 6 was probably inserted by Izaak Walton.

Poem 9. This Poem, with 25 and 94, is taken from Davison's "Rhapsody," first published in 1602. One stanza has been here omitted, in accordance with the principle noticed in the Preface. Similar omissions occur in 45, 87, 100, 128, 160, 165, 227, 235. The more serious abbreviation by which it has been attempted to bring Crashaw's "Wishes" and Shelley's "Euganean Hills" within the limits of lyrical unity, is commended with much diffidence to the judgment of readers acquainted with the original pieces.

_Presence_ in line 12 is here conjecturally printed for _present_. A very few similar corrections of (it is presumed) misprints have been made:--as _thy_ for _my_, 22, line 9: _men_ for _me_, 41, line 3: _viol_ for _idol_, 252, line 43, and _one_ for _our_, line 90: _locks_ for _looks_, 271, line 5: _dome_ for _doom_, 275, line 25:--with two or three more less important.

Poem 15.

This charming little poem, truly "old and plain, and dallying with the innocence of love" like that spoken of in Twelfth Night, is taken with 5, 17, 20, 34, and 40, from the most characteristic collection of Elizabeth's reign, "England's Helicon," first published in 1600.

Poem 16.

Readers who have visited Italy will be reminded of more than one picture by this gorgeous Vision of Beauty, equally sublime and pure in its Paradisaical naturalness. Lodge wrote it on a voyage to "the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries"; and he seems to have caught, in those southern seas, no small portion of the qualities which marked the almost contemporary Art of Venice,--the glory and the glow of Veronese, or Titian, or Tintoret, when he most resembles Titian, and all but surpasses him.

_The clear_: is the crystalline or outermost heaven of the old cosmography. For _resembling_ other copies give _refining_: the correct reading is perhaps _revealing_.

_For a fair there's fairer none_: If you desire a Beauty, there is none more beautiful than Rosaline.

Poem 18.

_that fair thou owest_: that beauty thou ownest.

Poem 23.

_the star Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken_: apparently, Whose stellar influence is uncalculated, although his angular altitude from the plane of the astrolabe or artificial horizon used by astrologers has been determined.

Poem 27.

_keel_: skim.

Poem 29.

_expense_: waste.

Poem 30.

_Nativity once in the main of light_: when a star has risen and entered on the full stream of light;--another of the astrological phrases no longer familiar.

_Crooked eclipses_: as coming athwart the Sun's apparent course.

Wordsworth, thinking probably of the "Venus" and the "Lucrece," said finely of Shakespeare "Shakespeare _could_ not have written an Epic; he would have died of plethora of thought." This prodigality of nature is exemplified equally in his Sonnets. The copious selection here given (which from the wealth of the material, required greater consideration than any other portion of the Editor's task) contains many that will not be fully felt and understood without some earnestness of thought on the reader's part. But he is not likely to regret the labour.

Poem 31.

_upon misprision growing_: either, granted in error, or, on the growth of contempt.

Poem 32.

With the tone of this Sonnet compare Hamlet's "Give me that man That is not passion's slave," etc. Shakespeare's writings show the deepest sensitiveness to passion:--hence the attraction he felt in the contrasting effects of apathy.

Poem 33.

_grame_: sorrow. It was long before English Poetry returned to the charming simplicity of this and a few other poems by Wyat.

Poem 34.

Pandion in the ancient fable was father to Philomela.

Poem 38.

_ramage_: confused noise.

Poem 39.

_censures_: judges.

Poem 40.

By its style this beautiful example of old simplicity and feeling may be referred to the early years of Elizabeth. _Late forgot_: lately.

Poem 41.

_haggards_: the least tameable hawks.

Poem 44.

_cypres_ or cyprus,--used by the old writers for _crape_: whether from the French _crespe_ or from the Island whence it was imported. Its accidental similarity in spelling to _cypress_ has, here and in Milton's Penseroso, probably confused readers.

Poems 46, 47.

"I never saw anything like this funeral dirge," says Charles Lamb, "except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the element which it contemplates."

Poem 51.

_crystal_: fairness.

Poem 53.

This "Spousal Verse" was written in honour of the Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. Although beautiful, it is inferior to the "Epithalamion" on Spenser's own marriage,--omitted with great reluctance as not in harmony with modern manners.

_feateously_: elegantly.

_shend_: put out.

_a noble peer_: Robert Devereux, second Lord Essex, then at the height of his brief triumph after taking Cadiz: hence the allusion following to the Pillars of Hercules, placed near Gades by ancient legend.

_Eliza_: Elizabeth; _twins of Jove_: the stars Castor and Pollux; _baldric_: belt, the zodiac.

Poem 57.

A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry;--that written by thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Wotton's, 72, is another. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay, have left similar specimens.

Poem 62.

_whist_: hushed; _Pan_: used here for the Lord of all; _Lars and Lemures_: household Gods and spirits of relations dead; _Flamens_: Roman priests; _That twice-batter'd god_: Dagon.

_Osiris_, the Egyptian god of Agriculture (here, perhaps by confusion with Apis, figured as a Bull), was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed after death in a sacred chest. This myth, reproduced in Syria and Greece in the legends of Thammuz, Adonis, and perhaps Absyrtus, represents the annual death of the Sun or the Year under the influences of the winter darkness. Horus, the son of Osiris, as the New Year, in his turn overcomes Typho.--It suited the genius of Milton's time to regard this primaeval poetry and philosophy of the seasons, which has a further reference to the contest of Good and Evil in Creation, as a malignant idolatry. Shelley's Chorus in _Hellas_, "Worlds on worlds," treats the subject in a larger and sweeter spirit.

_unshower'd grass_: as watered by the Nile only.

Poem 64.

_The Late Massacre_: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy. This "collect in verse," as it has been justly named, is the most mighty Sonnet in any language known to the Editor. Readers should observe that, unlike our sonnets of the sixteenth century, it is constructed , on the original Italian or Provençal model,--unquestionably far superior to the imperfect form employed by Shakespeare and Drummond.

Poem 65.

Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650. Hence the prophecies, not strictly fulfilled, of his deference to the Parliament, in stanzas 21-24.

This Ode, beyond doubt one of the finest in our language, and more in Milton's style than has been reached by any other poet, is occasionally obscure from imitation of the condensed Latin syntax. The meaning of st. 5 is "rivalry or hostility are the same to a lofty spirit, and limitation more hateful than opposition." The allusion in st. 11 is to the old physical doctrines of the non-existence of a vacuum and the impenetrability of matter:--in st. 17 to the omen traditionally connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome. The ancient belief that certain years in life complete natural periods and are hence peculiarly exposed to death, is introduced in stanza 26 by the word _climacteric_.

Poem 66.

_Lycidas_. The person lamented is Milton's college friend Edward King, drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland.

Strict Pastoral Poetry was first written or perfected by the Dorian Greeks settled in Sicily: but the conventional use of it, exhibited more magnificently in _Lycidas_ than in any other pastoral, is apparently of Roman origin. Milton, employing the noble freedom of a great artist, has here united ancient mythology, with what may be called the modern mythology of Camus and Saint Peter,--to direct Christian images.--The metrical structure of this glorious poem is partly derived from Italian models.

_Sisters of the sacred well_: the Muses, said to frequent the fountain Helicon on Mount Parnassus.

_Mona_: Anglesea, called by the Welsh Inis Dowil or the Dark Island, from its dense forests.

_Deva_: the Dee: a river which probably derived its magical character from Celtic traditions: it was long the boundary of Briton and Saxon.--These places are introduced, as being near the scene of the shipwreck.

_Orpheus_ was torn to pieces by Thracian women; _Amaryllis_ and _Neaera_ names used here for the love idols of poets: as _Damoetas_ previously for a shepherd.

_the blind Fury_: Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life.

_Arethuse_ and _Mincius_: Sicilian and Italian waters here alluded to as synonymous with the pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Virgil.

_oat_: pipe, used here like Collins' _oaten stop_, No. 146, for _Song_.

_Hippotades_: Aeolus, god of the Winds. _Panope_ a Nereid. The names of local deities in the Hellenic mythology express generally some feature in the natural landscape, which the Greeks studied and analysed with their usual unequalled insight and feeling. Panope represents the boundlessness of the ocean-horizon when seen from a height, as compared with a limited horizon of the land in hilly countries such as Greece or Asia Minor.

_Camus_: the Cam; put for King's University.

_The sanguine flower_: the Hyacinth of the ancients; probably our Iris.

_The pilot_: Saint Peter, figuratively introduced as the head of the Church on earth, to foretell "the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their heighth" under Laud's primacy.

_the wolf_: Popery.

_Alpheus_: a stream in Southern Greece, supposed to flow underseas to meet the Arethuse.

_Swart star_: the Dogstar, called swarthy because its heliacal rising in ancient times occurred soon after mid-summer.

_moist vows_: either tearful prayers, or prayers for one at sea.

_Bellerus_: a giant, apparently created here by Milton to personify Bellerium, the ancient title of the Land's End.

_The great Vision_:--The story was that the Archangel Michael had appeared on the rock by Marazion in Mount's Bay which bears his name. Milton calls on him to turn his eyes from the south homeward, and to pity Lycidas, if his body has drifted into the troubled waters of the Land's End. Finisterre being the land due south of Marazion, two places in that district (then by our trade with Corunna probably less unfamiliar to English ears), are named,--_Namancos_ now Mujio in Galicia, _Bayona_ north of the Minho, or, perhaps a fortified rock (one of the _Cies_ Islands) not unlike St. Michael's Mount, at the entrance of Vigo Bay.

_ore_: rays of golden light. _Doric lay_: Sicilian, pastoral.

Poem 70.

_The assault_: was an attack on London expected in 1642, when the troops of Charles I. reached Brentford. "Written on his door" was in the original title of this sonnet. Milton was then living in Aldersgate Street.

_Emathian Conqueror_: When Thebes was destroyed (B.C. 335) and the citizens massacred by thousands, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar to be spared. He was as incapable of appreciating the Poet as Lewis XIV. of appreciating Racine: but even the narrow and barbarian mind of Alexander could understand the advantage of a showy act of homage to Poetry.

_the repeated air \Of sad Electra's poet_: Amongst Plutarch's vague stories, he says that when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B.C. took Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the Electra of Euripides sung at a feast. There is however no apparent congruity between the lines quoted (167, 8 Ed. Dindorf) and the result ascribed to them.

Poem 73.

This high-toned and lovely Madrigal is quite in the style, and worthy of, the "pure Simonides."

Poem 75.

Vaughan's beautiful though quaint verses should be compared with Wordsworth's great Ode, No. 287.

Poem 76.

_Favonius_: the spring wind.

Poem 77.

_Themis_: the goddess of justice. Skinner was grandson by his mother to Sir E. Coke;--hence, as pointed out by Mr. Keightley, Milton's allusion to the _bench_.

_what the Swede intends, and what the French_: Sweden was then at war with Poland, and France with the Spanish Netherlands.

Poem 79.

_Sydneian showers_: either in allusion to the conversations in the "Arcadia," or to Sidney himself as a model of "gentleness" in spirit and demeanour.

Poem 84.

_Elizabeth of Bohemia_: Daughter to James I., and ancestor to Sophia of Hanover. These lines are a fine specimen of gallant and courtly compliment.

Poem 85.

Lady M. Ley was daughter to Sir J. Ley, afterwards Earl of Marlborough, who died March, 1628-9, coincidently with the dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles's reign. Hence Milton poetically compares his death to that of the Orator Isocrates of Athens, after Philip's victory in 328 B.C.

Poems 92, 93.

These are quite a Painter's poems.

Poem 99.

_From Prison_: to which his active support of Charles I. twice brought the high-spirited writer.

Poem 105.

Inserted in Book II. as written in the character of a Soldier of Fortune in the Seventeenth Century.

Poem 106.

_Waly waly_: an exclamation of sorrow, the root and the pronunciation of which are preserved in the word _caterwaul_. _Brae_: hillside; _burn_: brook; _busk_: adorn. _Saint Anton's Well_: at the foot of Arthur's Seat by Edinburgh. _Cramasie_: crimson.

Poem 107.

_burd_: maiden.

Poem 108.

_corbies_: crows; _fail_: turf; _hause_: neck; _theek_: thatch.

If not in their origin, in their present form this and the two preceding poems appear due to the Seventeenth Century, and have therefore been placed in Book II.

Poem 111.

The remark quoted in the note to No. 47 applies equally to these truly wonderful verses, which, like "Lycidas," may be regarded as a test of any reader's insight into the most poetical aspects of Poetry. The general differences between them are vast: but in imaginative intensity Marvell and Shelley are closely related. This poem is printed as a translation in Marvell's works: but the original Latin is obviously his own. The most striking verses in it, here quoted as the book is rare, answer more or less to stanzas 2 and 6:

Alma Quies, teneo te! et te, germana Quietis, Simplicitas! vos ergo diu per templa, per urbes Quaesivi, regum perque alta palatia, frustra: Sed vos hortorum per opaca silentia, longe Celarunt plantae virides, et concolor umbra.

Poems 112&113.

_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_. It is a striking proof of Milton's astonishing power, that these, the earliest pure Descriptive Lyrics in our language, should still remain the best in a style which so many great poets have since attempted. The Bright and the Thoughtful aspects of Nature are their subjects: but each is preceded by a mythological introduction in a mixed Classical and Italian manner. The meaning of the first is that Gaiety is the child of Nature; of the second, that Pensiveness is the daughter of Sorrow and Genius.

112: Perverse ingenuity has conjectured that for _Cerberus_ we should read _Erebus_, who in the Mythology is brother at once and husband of Night. But the issue of this union is not Sadness, but Day and Aether:--completing the circle of primary creation, as the parents are both children of Chaos, the first-begotten of all things. (Hesiod.)

_the mountain nymph_: compare Wordsworth's Sonnet, No. 210.

_The clouds in thousand liveries dight_: is in _apposition_ to the preceding, by a grammatical license not uncommon with Milton.

_tells his tale_: counts his flock; _Cynosure_: the Pole Star; _Corydon, Thyrsis_, etc.: Shepherd names from the old Idylls; _Jonson's learned sock_: the gaiety of our age would find little pleasure in his elaborate comedies; _Lydian airs_: a light and festive style of ancient music.

113: _bestead_: avail.

_starr'd Ethiop queen_: Cassiopeia, the legendary Queen of Ethiopia, and thence translated amongst the constellations.

_Cynthia_: the Moon: her chariot is drawn by dragons in ancient representations.

_Hermes_: called Trismegistus, a mystical writer of the Neo-Platonist school; _Thebes_, etc.: subjects of Athenian Tragedy; _Buskin'd_: tragic; _Musaeus_: a poet in Mythology.

_him that left half told_: Chaucer, in his incomplete "Squire's Tale."

_great bards_: Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, are here intended.

_frounced_: curled; _The Attic Boy_: Cephalus.

Poem 114.

Emigrants supposed to be driven towards America by the government of Charles I.

_But apples_, etc.: A fine example of Marvell's imaginative hyperbole.

Poem 115.

_concent_: harmony.

Poem 123.

_The Bard_.: This Ode is founded on a fable that Edward I., after conquering Wales, put the native Poets to death. After lamenting his comrades (st. 2, 3) the Bard prophesies the fate of Edward II. and the conquests of Edward III. (4); his death and that of the Black Prince (5): of Richard II, with the wars of York and Lancaster, the murder of Henry VI. (the _meek usurper_), and of Edward V. and his brother (6). He turns to the glory and prosperity following the accession of the Tudors (7), through Elizabeth's reign (8): and concludes with a vision of the poetry of Shakespeare and Milton.

_Glo'ster_: Gilbert de Clare, son-in-law to Edward; _Mortimer_: one of the Lords Marchers of Wales.

_Arvon_: the shores of Carnarvonshire opposite Anglesey.

_She-wolf_: Isabel of France, adulterous Queen of Edward II.; _Towers of Julius_: the Tower of London, built in part, according to tradition, by Julius Caesar.

_bristled boar_: the badge of Richard III.

_Half of thy heart_: Queen Eleanor died soon after the conquest of Wales.

_Arthur_: Henry VII. named his eldest son thus, in deference to British feeling and legend.

Poem 125.

The Highlanders called the battle of Culloden, Drumossie.

Poem 126.

_lilting_: singing blithely; _loaning_: broad lane; _bughts_: pens; _scorning_: rallying; _dowie_: dreary; _daffin'_ and _gabbin'_: joking and chatting; _leglin_: milkpail; _shearing_: reaping; _bandsters_: sheaf-binders; _lyart_: grizzled; _runkled_: wrinkled; _fleeching_: coaxing; _gloaming_: twilight; _bogle_: ghost; _dool_: sorrow.

Poem 128.

The Editor has found no authoritative text of this poem, in his judgment superior to any other of its class in melody and pathos. Part is probably not later than the seventeenth century: in other stanzas a more modern hand, much resembling Scott's, is traceable. Logan's poem (127) exhibits a knowledge rather of the old legend than of the old verses.

_Hecht_: promised, the obsolete _hight_; _mavis_: thrush; _ilka_: every; _lav'rock_: lark; _haughs_: valley-meadows; _twined_: parted from; _marrow_: mate; _syne_ then.

Poem 129.

The _Royal George_, of 108 guns, whilst undergoing a partial careening in Portsmouth Harbour, was overset about 10 A.M. Aug. 29, 1782. The total loss was believed to be near 1000 souls.

Poem 131.

A little masterpiece in a very difficult style: Catullus himself could hardly have bettered it. In grace, tenderness, simplicity, and humour it is worthy of the Ancients; and even more so, from the completeness and unity of the picture presented.

Poem 136.

Perhaps no writer who has given such strong proofs of the poetic nature has left less satisfactory poetry than Thomson. Yet he touched little which he did not beautify: and this song, with "Rule Britannia" and a few others, must make us regret that he did not more seriously apply himself to lyrical writing.

Poem 140.

_Aeolian lyre_: the Greeks ascribed the origin of their Lyrical Poetry to the colonies of Aeolis in Asia Minor.

_Thracia's hills_ supposed a favourite resort of Mars.

_Feather'd king_ the Eagle of Jupiter, admirably described by Pindar in a passage here imitated by Gray.

_Idalia_: in Cyprus, where _Cytherea_ (Venus) was especially worshipped.

_Hyperion_: the Sun. St. 6-8 allude to the Poets of the Islands and Mainland of Greece, to those of Rome and of England.

_Theban Eagle_: Pindar.

Poem 141.

_chaste-eyed Queen_: Diana.

Poem 142.

_Attic warbler_: the nightingale.

Poem 144.

_sleekit_: sleek; _bickering brattle_: flittering flight; _laith_: loth; _pattle_: ploughstaff; _whyles_: at times; _a daimen icker_: a corn-ear now and then; _thrave_: shock; _lave_: rest; _foggage_: aftergrass; _snell_: biting; _but hald_: without dwelling-place; _thole_: bear; _cranreuch_: hoarfrost; _thy lane_: alone; _a-gley_: off the right line, awry.

Poem 147.

Perhaps the noblest stanzas in our language.

Poem 148.

_stoure_: dust-storm; _braw_: smart.

Poem 149.

_scaith_: hurt; _tent_: guard; _steer_: molest.

Poem 151.

_drumlie_: muddy; _birk_: birch.

Poem 152.