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 BOOKS BY WAITMAN BARB 
 
 Famous Poems Explained 
 
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 Great Poems Interpreted 
 
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 GREAT POEMS 
 INTERPRETED 
 
 WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE AUTHORS REPRESENTED 
 
 BY 
 
 WAITMAN BARBE, A. M., Litt. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY 
 
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 Copyright, 1914, by Hinds, Noble & Bldredge
 
 SAiSTA liAliiiARA 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The wide and increasing use which teachers and stu- 
 dents are making of Famous Poems Explained seems 
 to call for a second volume of the same general char- 
 acter, but dealing for the most part with poems more 
 difficult to understand. It is hoped that the present 
 volume will be found useful in high schools and colleges, 
 and in teachers' reading circles. 
 
 Every student of English and American literature is 
 indebted to a multitude of other students; whether or 
 not the present writer has made diligent investigation on 
 his own account, the following pages will show. 
 
 Most of these studies were made in the Bodleian Li- 
 brary at Oxford University, and for the courteous as- 
 sistance of the officers of that institution, thanks are 
 here expressed. 
 
 W. B. 
 West Virginia University, 
 
 January, 1914.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 TITLE AUTHOR PACK 
 
 Corinna's Going a-Maying Robert Hcrrick 7 
 
 Lycidas John Milton 19 
 
 Alexander's Feast John Drydcn 37 
 
 The Bard Thomas Gray 51 
 
 Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard. . .Thomas Gray 05 
 
 The Deserted Village Oliver Goldsmith 79 
 
 To Mary William Coicpcr 95 
 
 Highland Mary Robert Burns 103 
 
 Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey 
 
 William Wordsworth 109 
 Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of 
 
 Early Childhood Williatn Wordsivorth 129 
 
 Rome (From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage) . .Lord Byron 145 
 
 Days Ralph Waldo Emerson 153 
 
 The Problem Ralph Waldo Emerson 157 
 
 Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley 167 
 
 The Cloud Percy Bysshe Shelley 179 
 
 Ode to a Nightingale John Keats 189 
 
 Ode on a Grecian Urn John Keats 201 
 
 The Sermon of Saint Francis 
 
 Henry W^adsivorth Longfellow 211 
 Hymn of the Moravian Nuns 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 217 
 
 Ulysses Lord Tennyson 225 
 
 Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington 
 
 Lord Tennyson 235 
 
 The Lady of Shalott Lord Tennyson 255 
 
 Merlin and the Gleam Lord Tennyson 269 
 
 Andrea del Sarto Robert Browning 2S1 
 
 The Lost Leader Robert Broivning 299 
 
 Philomela Matthew Arnold 307 
 
 The Deacon's Masterpiece ; or, The Wonderful One- 
 
 Hoss Shay Oliver Wendell Holmes 313 
 
 Rhoecus James Russell Lowell 321 
 
 The Shepherd of King Admetus. . . .James Russell Lowell 329 
 
 The Blessed Damozel Dante Gabriel Rossetti 335 
 
 A Group of Sonnets — TFi7/iawi Shakespeare, John Milton, 
 
 William Wordsicorth, John Keats, Dante Gabriel 
 
 Rossetti. 347 
 
 Biographical Notes. 357 
 
 3
 
 Corinna*s Going a- Maying
 
 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING 
 
 The joy of this life was Robert Herrick's habitual 
 theme. His special province was the joy of country life. 
 Corimia's Going a-Maying is not only an exquisite and 
 enticing piece of writing, but it is the best expression 
 in literature of one of the most interesting phases of 
 English social life ; and the poem yields its full meaning 
 only to those who know what May-Day meant during a 
 period of at least four centuries. Home's Every Day 
 Book says: "This was the great rural festival of our 
 forefathers. Their hearts responded merrily to the 
 cheerfulness of the season. At the dawn of May morning 
 the lads and lassies left their towns and villages, and 
 repairing to the woodlands by sound of music, they 
 gathered the 'may,' or blossomed branches of the trees, 
 and bound them with wreaths of flowers ; then returning 
 to their homes by sunrise they decorated the lattices and 
 doors with the sweet-smelling spoil of their joyous 
 journey, and spent the remaining hours in sports and 
 pastimes." 
 
 Elsewhere the same authority says; "In the 16th 
 century it was still customary for the middle and humble 
 classes to go forth at an early hour of the morning in 
 order to gather flowers and hawthorn branches, which 
 they brought home about sunrise, with accompaniments 
 of horn and tabour and all possible signs of joy and 
 merriment. With these spoils they would decorate 
 every door and window in the village. By a natural 
 
 7
 
 8 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING 
 
 transition of ideas, tliey gave to the haAvthorn blossom 
 the name of May; they called this ceremony 'the bring- 
 ing home the May'; they spoke of the expedition to the 
 woods as 'going a-]\laying'. The fairest maid of the vil- 
 lage was crowned with flowers as the 'Queen of the 
 May'; the lads and lassies met, danced and sang to- 
 gether. . . . In a somewhat earlier age ladies and 
 gentlemen Avere accustomed to join in the Maj'ing festivi- 
 ties. Even the king and queen condescended to mingle 
 on this occasion with their subjects." 
 
 In The Court of Love, formerly attributed to Chaucer, 
 we read that early on }iIay-Day "forth goeth all the 
 court, both most and least, to fetch the flowers fresh." 
 In the reign of Henry VIII the heads of the corporation 
 of London "went out into the high grounds of Kent to 
 gather the May, the King and his Queen, Catherine of 
 Aragon, coming from their palace of Greenwich and 
 meeting these respected dignitaries on Shooter's Hill." 
 
 Henry Bourne in Antiquities of the Common People, 
 published 1725, says: "The after part of May-Day is 
 chiefly spent in dancing round a tall Poll, which is called 
 a May Poll ; which being placed in a convenient part of 
 the village stands there as it were consecrated to the 
 Goddess of Flowers, wdthout the least violation offered to 
 it, in the whole circle of the year. ' ' 
 
 The good Philip Stubbes did not approve of these 
 frivolities, but his description of them, in his Anatomy 
 of Abuses, 1583, is interesting: "Their chiefest Jewell 
 they bring from thence is their Male poole, whiche they 
 bring home with greate veneration, as thus. They have 
 twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyug a
 
 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING 9 
 
 sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his homes, 
 and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole, whiche is 
 covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde 
 rounde aboute with stringes from the toppe to the bot- 
 tome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with 
 two or three hundred men, women, and children follow- 
 yng it, with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, 
 with handkerchiefs and flagges streaming on the toppe, 
 they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes 
 aboute it, sett up Sommer Bowers and Arbours hard by 
 it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape 
 and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the 
 dedication of their Idolles, whereof , this is the perfect 
 patterne, or rather the thyng itself." 
 
 An anonymous writer early in the 17th century says : 
 "In the month of May, namely on May-Day in the morn- 
 ing, every man, except impediment, would walke into 
 the sweete meddowes and green woods, there to re Joyce 
 their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, 
 and with the harmonic of birds praising God in their 
 kinde. . . . The citizens of London, of all estates, 
 had their severall Mayings, and did fetch in May-poles ; 
 with divers warlike shewes, with good archers, morrice- 
 dancers, and other devises for pastime all the day long ; 
 and towards the evening they had stage-plaies, and 
 bone-fires in the streets." 
 
 In Shakespeare 's King Henry VIII there is this refer- 
 ence to the universality of the May-Day custom : 
 
 Pray, sir, be patient ; 'tis as much impossible 
 (Unless we sweep them from the door with cannons) 
 To scatter 'em as 'tis to make 'em sleep 
 On May-Day morning ; which will never be.
 
 10 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING 
 
 When the Puritans came into power they suppressed 
 all festivities, i\Iay-Day along with the rest. On April 
 6, 1644, Parliament ordered : 
 
 "The lords and commons do further order and or- 
 dain, that all and singular may-poles, that are or shall 
 be erected, shall be taken down, and removed by the 
 constables, boss-holders, tithing-men, petty constables, 
 and churchwardens of the parishes, where the same be, 
 and that no ]\Iay-pole be hereafter set up within this 
 kingdom of England or dominion of "Wales; the said 
 officers to be fined five shillings weekly till the said ]\Iay- 
 pole be taken down. ' ' 
 
 But with the restoration of Charles II came the restor- 
 ation of ]\Iay-poles and ]\Iay-Day festivities. On the 
 first May-Day after the Restoration a May-pole was set 
 up in the Strand with great ceremony and rejoicing; 
 "little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did 
 clap their hands saying, golden days began to appear." 
 
 Thereafter for a hundred years no other social cus- 
 tom of rural England was so full of the joyous spirit as 
 the celebration of May-Day. But the custom gradually 
 died out, and has not been observed for perhaps a hun- 
 dred years, except in a very few places. The Gentle- 
 man's Magazine for 1822 says: "]\Iay-poles are still 
 erected but the May-games are utterly lost." One fea- 
 ture of these games, however, the Morris-dance, still 
 lingers to this day in a few sections of rural England. 
 
 R. Chambers, in The Book of Bays, published at Ed- 
 inburgh, 1863, says: "One of the London parishes takes 
 its distinctive name from the May-Pole which in olden 
 times overtopped its steeple. The Parish is that of St.
 
 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING 11 
 
 Andrew Undershaft .... Stow, who is buried in this 
 church, tells us that in his time the shaft was set up 
 'every year, on May-day in the morning' by the exulting 
 Londoners 'in the midst of the street before the south 
 door of the said church ; which shaft, when it was set 
 up and fixed in the ground, was higher than the church 
 steeple. ' During the rest of the year the pole was hung 
 upon iron hooks above the door of the neighboring 
 houses, and immediately beneath the projecting pent- 
 houses which kept the rain from their doors. It was 
 destroyed in a fit of Puritanism in the third year of 
 Edward VI after a sermon preached at St. Paul's Cross 
 against May games, when the inhabitants of these 
 houses 'sawed it in pieces, everie man taking for his 
 share as much as had layne over his doore and stall, the 
 length of the house, and they of the alley divided 
 amongst them so much as had layne over their alley 
 gate ' . . . . Scattered in some of the more remote Eng- 
 lish villages are a few of the old IMay-poles. One still 
 does duty as a supporter of a weathercock in the church- 
 yard at Pendleton, Manchester; others might be cited 
 serving more ignoble uses than they were originally in- 
 tended for. The custom of dressing them with May 
 garlands, and dancing around them, has departed from 
 utilitarian England, and the jollity of old country cus- 
 toms given way to the ceaseless labouring monotony of 
 commercial town life." 
 
 Robert Herrick lived in the 17th century (1591-1674) 
 when English country life was full of simple, natural, 
 unrestrained enjoyment, and was not the dull sodden 
 thing it has come to be in our time. He was the vicar
 
 12 CORINNA'S GOING A-MATING 
 
 of a little country cliiircli, and many of kis poems con- 
 tain references to some of the forms of the church. 
 May-Day customs are mentioned by Chaucer, Spenser, 
 Shakespeare, Dryden and many of the other early poets, 
 but Ilerrick's poem is the supreme expression of their 
 spirit as it blassomed with the flowers through the 
 centuries. 
 
 corinna's going a-maying 
 
 Get up, get up for shame ! The blooming morn 
 Upon her wings presents the god unsliorn. 
 
 See how Aurora throws her fair 
 
 Fresh-quilted eolours through the air ! 
 
 Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see 5 
 
 The dew bespangling herb and tree. 
 Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east 
 Above an hour since ; j^et you not drost — 
 
 Nay! not so much as out of bed, 
 
 "When all the birds have matins said, 10 
 
 And sung their thankful hymn : 'tis sin, 
 
 Nay, profanation, to keep in — 
 Whenas a thousand virgins on this day 
 Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May. 
 
 Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen 15 
 
 To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and green, 
 
 the god unsliorn — (line 2) — Apollo, the sun. 
 
 Aurora (."?) — the goddess of moniiniu'. 
 
 hoired touard Ihc cast (7) — this is one of many references in 
 Herrick's poems to rellfrious ceremonies. 
 
 matins (10) — morning songs of praise. 
 
 tchenas (13) — whereas; while. 
 
 May (14) — blossoms of the hawthorn ; hence the tree itself: so call- 
 ed because it blooms in the month of May.
 
 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING 13 
 
 And Sweet as Flora. Take no care 
 
 For jewels for your gown or hair: 
 
 Fear not; the leaves will strew 
 
 Gems in abundance upon you: 20 
 
 Besides, the childhood of the day has kept 
 Against you come, some orient pearls unwept : 
 
 Come, and receive them while the light 
 
 Hangs on the dew-locks of the night : 
 
 And Titan on the eastern hill 25 
 
 Retires himself, or else stands still 
 Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying : 
 Few beads are best, when once we go a-]\Iaying. 
 
 Come, my Corinna, come ! and coming, mark 
 
 How each field turns a street, each street a park 30 
 
 Made green, and trimmed with trees : See how 
 
 Devotion gives each house a bough 
 
 Or branch : each porch, each door, ere this, 
 
 An ark, a tabernacle is, 
 Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove, 35 
 
 As if here were those eooler shades of love. 
 
 Can such delights be in the street 
 
 And open fields, and we not see't? 
 
 Come, we'll abroad: and let's obey 
 
 The proclamation made for May : 40 
 
 Flora (17) — The goddess of flowers. Her festival was celebrated at 
 the beginning of May. 
 
 Orient pearls unwept (22) — dew-drops. 
 
 Titan (25) — here means the sun. 
 
 leads (28) — prayers. 
 
 each field turns a street (30) — becomes like a street full of young 
 people.
 
 14 CORINNA'S GOING A-MATING 
 
 And sin no more, as we have done, by stajnng : 
 But, my Corinna, come; let's go a-Maying. 
 There's not a budding boy or girl, this day, 
 But is got up, and gone to bring in May. 
 
 A deal of youth, ere this, is come 45 
 
 Back, and with white-thorn laden home. 
 
 Some have despatched their cakes and cream, 
 
 Before that we have left to dream : 
 And some have wept, and wooed, and plighted troth. 
 And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth : 50 
 
 Many a green -gown has been given : 
 
 IMany a kiss, both odd and even : 
 
 Many a glance, too, has been sent 
 
 From out the eye. Love 's firmament : 
 Many a jest told of the keys betraying 55 
 
 This night, and locks picked : — Yet we're not a-Maying. 
 
 Come ! let us go, while we are in our prime, 
 And take the hai-mless folly of the time ! 
 
 We shall grow old apace, and die 
 
 Before we know our liberty. 60 
 
 Our life is short: and our days run 
 
 As fast away as does the sun : 
 And as a vapour, or a drop of rain 
 Once lost, can ne'er be found again; 
 
 So when or you or I are made 65 
 
 A fable, song, or fleeting shade, 
 
 cakes and cream (47) — the universal custom was to eat cakes 
 and cream on May-Day morning. 
 
 lejt to dream (48) — ceased dreaming. 
 prcen-rjown (51) — tumble on the grass. 
 both odd and even (52) —a game of chance.
 
 CORINNA'S GOING A-MATING 15 
 
 All love, all liking, all delight 
 
 Lies drowned with us in endless night. 
 Then while time serves, and we are but decaying, 
 Come, my Corinna, come! let's go a-Maying. 70 
 
 — Robert Herrick. 
 
 An interesting May-Day custom survives at Magdalen College, Ox- 
 ford. Every May-Day morning at five o'clock, a Latin hymn to the 
 Holy Trinity is sung on the summit of the college tower by the 
 college choir in their surplices. The choir is considered the finest 
 in England. The custom has obtained for several centuries. 
 
 Felix E. Schelling says (Seventeenth Century Lyrics) : "There 
 are some of us who feel that we could no more spare the dainty 
 grace and beauty of Corinna^s Going a-Maying than we could en- 
 dure to lose a book of Paradise Lost!" 
 
 F. T. Palgrave, in the Golden Treasury says : "A lyric more 
 faultless and sweet than this cannot be found in any literature. 
 Keeping with profound instinctive art within the limits of the key 
 chosen, Herrick has reached a perfection very rare at any period 
 of literature in the tones of playfulness, natural description, pas- 
 sion, and seriousness, which introduce and follow each other like 
 the motives in a sonata by Weber or Beethoven, throughout this 
 little masterpiece of music without notes." 
 
 Spenser, in The Shepherd's Calendar, 1579-80, says: 
 Is not thilke the mcry moneth of May, 
 When love-lads masken in fresh aray? 
 How falles it, then, we no merrier bene, 
 Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene? 
 Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde 
 For thilke same season, when all is ycladd 
 With pleasaunce : the grawnd with grasse, the Woods 
 With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds. 
 Yougthes folke now flocken in every where, 
 To gather May bus-kets and smelling brere : 
 And home they hasten the postes to dight, 
 And all the Kirke pillours eare day light, 
 With Hawthorne buds and swete Eglantine, 
 And girlonds of roses, and Sopps in wine. 
 Such merimake holy Saints doth queme, [please] 
 But we here sitten as drownd in a dreme.
 
 Lycidas 
 
 IT
 
 LYCIDAS 19 
 
 LYCIDAS 
 
 Those who think that poetry should be the spontan- 
 eous expression of personal feeling, simple and direct, 
 do not take kindly to Milton's Lycidas; but those who 
 enjoy a work of art, finished to perfection, richly inlaid 
 with rare gems from every clime, and profusely over- 
 wrought with exquisite traceries, find in this poem a 
 source of perpetual delight. So many are its riches, it 
 must be read again and again before they are fully 
 comprehended. At first they dazzle but do not satisfy. 
 Every gem must be studied in itself as well as in its 
 setting. 
 
 Lycidas is an elegy for Edward King, one of Milton's 
 college friends at Cambridge, who lost his life in a 
 shipwreck in the Irish Channel August 10, 1637. King 
 was a young man of much promise, a writer of poetry, 
 and a student for the Church of England ministry. 
 Shortly after his unfortunate death Cambridge Uni- 
 versity decided to publish a collection of memorial verses 
 as a tribute to his memory. At that time such publica- 
 tions were quite common, and it is not to be expected 
 that they were all expressions of deep personal grief. 
 The Cambridge volume, or rather two volumes, appeared 
 the following year and contained, along with thirty-five 
 other tributes to King, Milton's Lycidas. The poem is 
 in the pastoral style : it is a pastoral elegy. A pastoral, 
 strictly speaking, is a poem about shepherds and deals 
 with country life in an artificial way. "Lycidas" is the 
 name given in this poem to Edward King. It is a com-
 
 20 LYCIDAS 
 
 mon name in old pastoral poetry for a shepherd, and 
 this is why Milton uses it. The poet represents himself 
 also as a shepherd, lamenting the untimely death of an- 
 other shepherd (King) whom he loved and who had been 
 his companion. This lament takes the manner of the old 
 classic pastorals and is not at all in the style of a 
 modern English cry of grief. All sorts of personages 
 and characters are introduced, and classic allusions 
 abound in nearly every line. For the purpose of analy- 
 sis I have divided the poem into nine sections, though 
 it is not ordinarily so printed. 
 
 Section 1 {lines 1-36) is introductory. He addresses 
 the laurel, the myrtle, and the ivy, — emblems of poetry, 
 love, and learning — and explains to them why he is 
 going to write "once more." It had been three years 
 since he had written a poem (Comus), and he writes 
 now only because of the sad occasion, the death of his 
 friend Lycidas (King). Then he implores the Muses, 
 "the Sisters of the sacred well," to begin the dirge, for 
 in the same way he hopes that when his own time shall 
 come some "gentle Muse," or poet, will lament for him. 
 Surely he has good cause to mourn for Lyeidas, for they 
 were children together, shepherds together, fed the same 
 flocks, and played the "oaten flute" together, ■while 
 fauns and satyrs danced; and Damaetas approved their 
 song. Damaetas is a name in old pastoral poetry for 
 the master of the shepherds. It may possibly refer here 
 to Dr. Chappell, a tutor at Cambridge in Milton's time. 
 
 The elegy proper begins with Section 2 (lines 37-49). 
 All nature mourns: woods, caves, willows, hazel-copses. 
 The death of Lycidas is to them as the canker to the
 
 LTCIDAS 21 
 
 rose, the taint-worm to the herds, or frost to flowers. 
 Notice that the objects of nature introduced are such as 
 a shepherd would be familiar with. 
 
 In Section 3 {li7ies 50-64) he upbraids the Nymphs 
 for not protecting Lycidas from drowning. He accuses 
 them of not being where they should have been, on the 
 top of Mona (the isle of Anglesey in the Irish Channel) 
 or on the steep nearby where ' ' the famous Druids lie, ' ' or 
 where the Deva (the river Dee) flows into the Channel. 
 These are all near where King was drowned. Then the 
 poet remembers that even if they had been there they 
 could have done nothing, for even the Muse herself 
 (referring to Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry) was not 
 able to save her own son Orpheus when he was torn to 
 pieces and his head was thro"RTi into the Hebros river 
 and carried to the island of Lesbos. If the Muse was 
 not able to save her own son, surely the Nymphs would 
 not have been able to save Lycidas even if they had been 
 present. 
 
 Section 4 (lines 64-84) is a digression. Here Milton 
 interrupts his lament for Lycidas and inserts a passage 
 on fame. The reference here is to himself. "He pro- 
 claims his convictions concerning the high office of poot, 
 which his contemporaries regarded so lightly, the dignity 
 of learning and study, and the worth of true fame," 
 (W. A. Verity). What profit is there, he asks, in taking 
 unceasing care and writing serious poetry ? Would it not 
 be better to write the popular love-poetry of the period 
 — to sport with the shepherdesses Amaryllis and Neara, 
 as Herrick, Lovelace, Suckling and other poets of the time 
 were doing? Fame may serve as a spur to labor and
 
 22 LYCIDAS 
 
 hard study and the scorn of delights, but just when 
 fame is about to be attained Fate or Death clips the 
 thread of life. But Phoebus Apollo, the Greek god of 
 song, checks him in this thought and tells him that true 
 fame is not an earthly thing: it exists only through the 
 final approval of Jove, and the reward is in Heaven. 
 Death cuts short life but not true fame. 
 
 In Section 5 (lines 85-103) he takes up the main 
 theme again and apologizes to the Muse of pastoral 
 poetry for the digression. The fountain of Arethusa 
 typifies Greek pastoral verse and the river Mincius, 
 Latin pastoral verse. He tells the Muse that the strain 
 he has just been listening to, the voice of Apollo about 
 true fame, was a higher mood. Then his tune on the 
 pastoral pipe (''oaten reed") proceeds. He listens to 
 Triton, the herald of the sea, summoning in behalf of 
 'Neptune, the god of the sea, a court of inquiry. He 
 asks the winds and the waves what hard misfortune had 
 doomed Lycidas to a watery grave: but they do not 
 know. Hippotades (Aeolus, the god of the winds) 
 answers for them, that the air was calm and that Panope 
 (one of the sea Nymphs) was playing with her sisters 
 on the smooth sea. There was no storm: it was the 
 fault of the poorly-built ship in which Lycidas sailed. 
 
 In Section 6 (Ihies 103-131) the chief mourners are 
 introduced. First comes Camus, the spirit of the river 
 Cam and therefore of Cambridge University, "footing 
 slow," for the Cam is a sluggish stream. "The sanguine 
 flower inscribed with woe" is the hyacinth. "Hyaein- 
 thus, son of a Spartan king, was killed by Zephyrus and 
 fi'om his blood sprang the flower named after him, on
 
 LYCIDAS 23 
 
 the petals of which could be traced ai, ai, 'alas! alas!' " 
 Last comes St. Peter, representing not particularly the 
 Roman church but the eh arch as a whole. Camus repre- 
 sents learning and St. Peter religion, both mourning for 
 Lycidas. In this section occurs a very severe and a very 
 famous censure of the Church of England. ]\Iilton him- 
 self at one time intended to take "holy orders," that is, 
 become a clergyman, but the condition of the church 
 disgusted him. Contemporary documents show that 
 many of the clergy were ignorant, indifferent, and 
 drunken. Moreover Archbishop Laud, a despotic and 
 meddlesome bigot, was treating the Nonconformists, or 
 those who did not believe in the Established Church, 
 with the greatest severity and was at that time prepar- 
 ing a liturgy which was to arouse all Scotland to rebel- 
 lion. There had been no Parliament for eight years and 
 no check of any kind was put on his actions. These 
 facts must be remembered before the terrible arraign- 
 ment of the Anglican Church in lines 113-130 can be 
 understood. A study of English history in the time of 
 Milton will wonderfully illuminate this passage. "The 
 grim wolf with the privy paw" is either the Papal party 
 or the Romanizing section of the Established Church, or 
 both. Exactly what is meant by the ** two-handed en- 
 gine" is not clear, except that it is retribution in some 
 terrible form — some two-handed sword of justice which 
 was to fall upon the Church of England. The axe is to 
 be laid to the root of the tree. It should be borne in 
 mind that Milton's deepest eonviction was that there 
 should be no such thing as an Established Church or 
 state-paid clergy.
 
 24 LTCIDAS 
 
 In Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies (paragraphs 20-25 of 
 the lecture on "King's Treasures") will be found an in- 
 teresting discussion of this passage. (See notes.) 
 
 Section 7 {lines 132-165) resumes the pastoral strain. 
 Once more he recalls the pastoral Muse. Alpheus, a 
 river of Peloponnesus, symbolizes the pastoral poetry of 
 the Greeks; the dread voice to which Milton has been 
 listening in the preceding section had checked the course 
 of his pastoral musings. Now he invokes the Muse to 
 bid the vales and streams and hills to strew the hearse of 
 Lycidas with their choicest flowers : primrose, jessamine, 
 pink, violet, muskrose, woodbine, cowslip, amaranth, and 
 daffodil. He eases his grief with this thought, though he 
 remembers, alas, that there is no hearse, the body has not 
 been recovered : perchance it is being borne to the Heb- 
 rides, or to where the Cornish giant Bellerus lies, or to 
 where the "vision" or spirit of St. ]\Iichael looks toward 
 Namancos and Bayonne in old Castile. The "guarded 
 mount" is St. Michael's off Penzance, and the "angel" 
 to whom the poet appeals to melt with pity and look 
 homeward is St. Michael. Then he appeals to the dolph- 
 in {see note) to guide the luckless Lycidas home. 
 
 Section 8 {lines 165-185) is the concluding passage 
 of the elegy proper. In it the mourning shepherd tells 
 the other shepherds to weep no more, for Lycidas is in- 
 deed not dead : he has gained eternal life through Christ, 
 through "Him that walked the waves." He is in the 
 kingdom of the blest ; all the saints above minister to him 
 and wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. Then, ad- 
 dressing Lycidas, he says that henceforth his spirit shall 
 be the good genius that shall guard the shore where the
 
 LYCIDAS 25 
 
 ship went down. Mr. Verity says, "This introduction 
 of a Pagan belief immediately after the reference to the 
 Scriptural idea of the 'communion of the saints,' and 
 the Scriptural language, is another instance of that 
 blending of the classics and Christianity which is so 
 marked a feature of Lycidas." 
 
 Section 9 is an epilogue, in which Milton, still calling 
 himself a shepherd and an "uncouth swain," says that 
 having finished his lament, and the evening having come 
 on, he arose and gathered his shepherd's mantle about 
 him; tomorrow he will set out for "fresh woods, and 
 pastures new". 
 
 ANALYSIS 
 
 Mr. W. Bell (notes in "The Golden Treasury") 
 gives the following analysis : 
 
 I. The pastoral proper (the poet sings as shepherd) : 
 
 1. Occasion of the poem, lines 1-14. 
 
 2. Invocation of the Muses, 15-22. 
 
 3. Poet's personal relations with Lycidas, 23-36. 
 
 4. Strain of sorrow and indignation ; the loss great and inex- 
 
 plicable : — 
 
 (1) Poet's own sense of loss, 37-49. 
 
 (2) The guardian Nymphs could not prevent it, 50-57. 
 
 (3) The Muse herself could not prevent it, though he was 
 
 her true son, 58-63. 
 (First rise to a higher mood: the true poet and the 
 nature of his reward), 64-84. 
 
 (4) Neptune was not to blame for the loss, 85-102. 
 
 (5) Camus, representing Cambridge, bewails his loss, 
 
 103-107. 
 (0) St. Peter, the guardian of the Church, sorely misses 
 Lycidas as a true son, 108-112. 
 (Second rise to a higher mood : The false sons of the 
 Church and their coming ruin), 113-131. 
 
 (7) All nature may well mourn his loss, 132-151. 
 
 (8) Sorrow loses itself in "false surmise," and hope 
 
 arises, 152-164.
 
 26 LYCIDAS 
 
 5. Strain of joy and hope : Lycidas is not dead, 165-185. 
 'II. The EJpilogue (the poet reviews the shepherd's song), 186-193. 
 
 LYCIDAS 
 
 "In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortu- 
 nately drown'd in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 
 1637 ; and by occasion foretells the ruine of our corrupted Clergie 
 then in their height." 
 
 Yet once more, ye laurels, and once more, 
 
 Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
 
 I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 
 
 And with forced fingers rude 
 
 Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 5 
 
 Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear. 
 
 Compels me to disturb your season due ; 
 
 For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
 
 Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 
 
 Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew 10 
 
 Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
 
 He must not float upon his watery bier 
 
 Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
 
 Without the meed of some melodious tear. 
 
 Begin, then. Sisters of the sacred well, 15 
 
 That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; 
 Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. 
 Hence with denial vain and coy excuse; 
 So may some gentle IMuse, 
 With lucky words favour my destined urn, 20 
 
 Sisters of the sacred well, etc. (lines 15-16) — the "Sisters" are 
 the nine muses, the "well" Is the fountain on Mt. Helicon, and the "seat 
 of JoTe" is the altar there, dedicated to Jove.
 
 LTCIDAS 27 
 
 And as he passes turn, 
 
 And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. 
 
 For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, 
 Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade and rill : 
 Together both, ere the high lawns appeared 25 
 
 Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, 
 We drove a-field, and both together heard 
 What time the graj^-fly winds her sultry horn, 
 Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, 
 Oft till the star that rose at evening bright 30 
 
 Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. 
 Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, 
 Tempered to the oaten flute ; 
 
 Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel 
 From the glad sound would not be absent long, 35 
 
 And Old Damaetas lov^d to hear our song. 
 
 2 
 
 But, the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
 Now thou art gone, and never must return ! 
 Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, 
 With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 40 
 And all their echoes mourn. 
 The willows, and the hazel copses green, 
 Shall now no more be seen 
 Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
 As killing as the canker to the rose, 45 
 
 Or taint-worm to the weaning herds that graze, 
 Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear, 
 
 batfenintj (29) — fattening. 
 
 oatin flute (33) — symbol of pastoral music.
 
 28 LYCIDAS 
 
 "When first the white-thorn blows : 
 
 Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 
 
 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 50 
 Closed 'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? 
 For neither were ye playing on the steep 
 Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, 
 Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, 
 Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. 55 
 
 Ay me, I fondly dream ! 
 
 Had ye been there — for what could that have done ? 
 What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore. 
 The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, 
 Whom universal Nature did lament, 60 
 
 When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, 
 His gory visage down the stream w^as sent, 
 Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? 
 
 4 
 
 Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care 
 To tend the homely slighted shepherd 's trade, 65 
 
 And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? 
 Were it not better done, as others use, 
 
 Druids (53) — Celtic priests. 
 
 Deva (55) — The river Dee; King sailed from Chester on the Dee. 
 
 When, hy the rout that made the hideous roar. (Gl) — Orpheus 
 so offended the women of Thrace by his inconsolable grief for Eury- 
 dice that In one of their orgies they tore him to pieces. The frag- 
 ments were collected by tho Muses and buried nt the foot of Olympus; 
 but the head having been thrown into the Ilebrus was carried away 
 to the Island of Lesbos.
 
 LYCIDAS 29 
 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
 
 Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? 
 
 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 70 
 
 (That last infirmity of noble mind) 
 
 To scorn delights, and live laborious days; 
 
 But the fair guerdon When we hope to find, 
 
 And think to burst out into sudden blaze. 
 
 Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 75 
 
 And slits the thin-spun life. **But not the praise", 
 
 Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears: 
 
 ' * Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
 
 Nor in the glistering foil 
 
 Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 80 
 
 But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, 
 
 And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; 
 
 As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
 
 Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed. ' ' 
 
 5 
 
 fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, 85 
 Smooth-sliding ]\Iincius, croAvned with vocal reeds. 
 That strain I heard was of a higher mood : 
 But now my oat proceeds. 
 And listens to the herald of the sea. 
 That came in Neptune 's plea : 90 
 
 He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, 
 What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? 
 And questioned every gust of rugged wings 
 That blows from off each beaked promontory. 
 
 the hUnd Fury (75) — here means Atropos, one of the Fates, who 
 clipped the thread of life.
 
 30 LTCIDAS 
 
 They knew not of his story : 95 
 
 And sage Ilippotadcs their answer brings: 
 That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed, 
 The air was cahn, and on the level brine 
 Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. 
 It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 100 
 
 Built in the eclipse, and rigged "wnth curses dark. 
 That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 
 
 6 
 Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, 
 His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, 
 Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 105 
 
 Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. 
 "Ah! who hath reft" (quoth he) "my dearest pledge?" 
 Last came, and last did go. 
 The Pilot of the Galilean Lake ; 
 
 Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 110 
 
 (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain) ; 
 lie shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake : 
 "How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
 Enow of such as for their bellies' sake 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! 115 
 
 Of other care they little reckoning make 
 Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 
 And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
 Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
 
 Two masfiy Tceys he bore (110) — "Afid I will give unto thee the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 16 : 19. The pictures of St. 
 Peter nlways represent him with two keys. 
 
 vvtrcfl Tories (112) — A mitre is a bishop's head-dress. 
 
 Blind mouths (119) — "Mouths" here stands for "gluttons," making 
 a powerful phrase.
 
 LYCIDAS 31 
 
 A sheep-hook, or have learnt anght else the least 120 
 
 That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! 
 
 What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped ; 
 
 And when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
 
 Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; 
 
 The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125 
 
 But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, 
 
 Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ; 
 
 Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
 
 Daily devours apace, and notliing said; 
 
 But that two-handed engine at the door 130 
 
 Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." 
 
 Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past 
 That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, 
 And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
 Their bells, and flowrets of a thousand hues. 135 
 
 Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
 Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
 On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, 
 Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, 
 That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, 140 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
 Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 
 
 sped (122) — provided for. 
 
 lean and flashy (123) — Poor and insipid. 
 
 scrannel (124) — harsh, screeching. 
 
 rank mist (126) — false doctrine. 
 
 draw (126) — breathe. 
 
 Sicilian Muse (133) — The muse of pastoral poetry. 
 
 sirart star (138) — The Dog Star. 
 
 rathe (142) — Early.
 
 32 LYCIDAS 
 
 The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, 
 
 The white piuk, and the pansy freaked with jet, 
 
 The glowing violet, 145 
 
 The musk rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 
 
 With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 
 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; 
 
 Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed. 
 
 And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 150 
 
 To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. 
 
 For so to interpose a little ease, 
 
 Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise ; 
 
 Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 
 
 Wash far away, where 'er thy bones are hurled ; 155 
 
 Whether oeyond the stormy Hebrides, 
 
 Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, 
 
 Vist'st the bottom of the monstrous world; 
 
 Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied. 
 
 Sleep 'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160 
 
 Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 
 
 Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold: 
 
 Look homeward. Angel, now, and melt with ruth; 
 
 And, ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. 
 
 8 
 Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 165 
 For Lycidas, j^our sorrow, is not dead, 
 Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor ; 
 
 sad embroidery (118) — See Section 6, line lOG. 
 
 monstrous world (IHS) — World of monsters, the ocean. 
 
 the great Vision (161) — Apparitions of St. Michael had been seen, 
 according to tradition, on St. Michael's Mount. 
 
 ye dolphins (104) — Referring to the familiar classical story that 
 a dolphin once saved the life of the Greek musician Arion.
 
 LYCIDAS 33 
 
 So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 
 
 And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
 
 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 170 
 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : 
 
 So Lycidas sank low but mounted hig*h, 
 
 Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, 
 
 Where, other groves and other streams along, 
 
 With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 175 
 
 And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, 
 
 In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
 
 There entertain him all the saints above, 
 
 In solemn troops and sweet societies, 
 
 That sing, and singing in their glory move, 180 
 
 And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. 
 
 Now, Lycidas, the shepherds w^eep no more ; 
 
 Henceforth thou art the Grenius of the shore, 
 
 In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
 
 To all that wander in that perilous flood. 185 
 
 9 
 Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
 While the still Morn went out with sandals gray ; 
 He touched the tender stops of various quills, 
 With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: 
 And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 190 
 
 And now was dropt into the western bay ; 
 At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: 
 To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. 
 
 — John Milton. 
 
 unexpressive (176) — Inexpressible. 
 
 stops of various quills (188) — Vnrious moods and meters. 
 
 Doric (189) — The pastorsl or Doric style.
 
 34 LYCIDAS 
 
 Commenting on the words "creep," and "intrude," and "climb," 
 Ruskin says : "No other words would or could serve the turn, and 
 no more could be added. For they exhaustively comprehend the 
 three classes, correspondent to the three characters of men who dis- 
 honestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who 'creep' into the 
 fold ; who do not care for ofTice nor name but for secret influence, 
 and do all things occultly and cunningly, consenting to any servility 
 of oflice or conduct, so only that they may intimately discern, and 
 unawares direct, the minds of men. Then those who 'intrude' 
 (thrust that is) themselves into the fold, who by natural insolence 
 of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant 
 self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. 
 Lastly, those who 'climb,' who by labor and learning, both stout 
 and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambi- 
 tion, gain high dignities and authorities." 
 
 Concerning the use of the phrase "blind mouths" he says : "Those 
 two monosyllables express the precisely accurate contraries of like 
 character in the two great ofEces of the Church, those of bishop and 
 pastor. A bishop means a person who sees. A pastor means one 
 who feeds. The most unbishoply character a man can have is there- 
 fore to be blind. The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to 
 want to be fed — to be a Mouth. Take the two reverses together, and 
 you have 'blind-mouths.' " 
 
 It is evident of course that to understand Lycidas the reader 
 must be well informed in classic mytliology.
 
 Alexander's Feast
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 37 
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 or. The Power of Music; 
 an Ode in honour of St, Cecilia's Day. 
 
 Joihn Dryden's best-known poem, and one of the great- 
 est of English Odes, is Alexander's Feast. It was writ- 
 ten in a single night, when Dryden had reached the age 
 of sixty-six. Lord Bolingbroke called upon him one 
 morning, and Drj^den said to him : "I have been up all 
 night; my musical friends made me promise to write 
 tliem an ode for their feast of St. Cecilia, and I was so 
 struck with the subject which occurred to me that I 
 could not leave it till I had completed it; here it is, 
 finished at one sitting." His "musical friends" were 
 the members of the St. Cecilia Society of London who 
 annually, on the 22nd of November, celebrated St. Ce- 
 cilia's Day. Songs had been written for these occasions 
 by Oldham, Nahum Tate and other poets; in 1687 Dry- 
 den had written his Song for St. Cecilia's Day. Pope 
 wrote a song for the society in 1708 ; but much the finest 
 of all is Alexander's Feast. 
 
 ■St, Cecilia, the patron saint of music, especially of 
 church music, was a member of a noble Roman family. 
 She was commanded to sacrifice to idols, refused to do 
 so, and was condemned to death, A. D. 230. She was 
 buried by Pope Urban in the catacombs of Calixtus. In 
 820 Pope Paschal had her body — which was found 
 "fresh and perfect as when it Avas first laid in the tomb, 
 and clad in rich garments mixed with gold, with linen
 
 38 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 cloths stained with blood rolled up at her feet" — re- 
 moved to the Church of St. Cecilia, which had originally 
 been her house. Beneath the high altar there is a statue 
 of St. Cecilia, representing her body as found in the 
 catacombs. She is regarded as the inventor of the organ, 
 and in the Roman Catholic church her festival-day, 
 November 22, is celebrated with splendid music. Raph- 
 ael's painting of St. Cecilia seated at a musical instru- 
 ment while an angel hovers near, dropping flowers, is 
 familiar to everybody; as Dryden says, ''she drew an 
 angel down." 
 
 Dryden 's poem not only represents the power of 
 music but it portrays an event, fairly well established, in 
 the life of Alexander the Great : the burning of the splen- 
 did city of Persepolis at the request of the celebrated 
 Greek wit and beauty, Thais. Plutarch thus tells the 
 story : 
 
 "When he was about to set forth from this place [Persepolis] 
 against Darius, he joined with his companions in a merry-making 
 and drinking bout. . . . The most celebrated of them [the women 
 present] was Thais, a girl of Attica ... As the license of the 
 drinking bout progressed she was carried so far, either by way 
 of offering Alexander a graceful compliment or of bantering him, 
 as to express a sentiment which, while not unworthy of the spirit 
 of her fatherland, was surely somewhat lofty for her own condition. 
 For she said ... it would give her still greater pleasure, if to 
 crown the celebration she might burn the house of the Xerxes who 
 once reduced Athens to ashes, and might with her own hands set the 
 fire under the eyes of the King ; so the saying might go forth 
 among men that the little woman with Alexander took sorer ven- 
 geance on the Persians in behalf of Greece than all the great gen- 
 erals who fought by sea or land. Iler words weTc received with 
 such tumults of applause, and .so earnestly seconded by the persua- 
 sions and zeal of the King's associates, that he was drawn into it 
 himself; and leaping up from his seat with a chaplet of flowers on 
 his head and a lighted torch in his hand led the way, while the
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 39 
 
 rest followed him in a drunken rout, with bacchanalian cries, about 
 the corridors of the palace." 
 
 The old historian Quintus Curtius gives the following 
 account of the incident: 
 
 "Thais, being heated with wine, told him [Alexander] he could 
 not do anything that would more oblige all the Greeks than if he 
 burnt the pahice of the kings of Persia; that they expected this 
 by way of reprisal for those towns of theirs the Barbarians had 
 destroyed. Some of the company (who were also loaded with 
 wine) applauded the proposal: and the king not only heard it with 
 patience, but eager to put it in execution, said, 'Why do we not 
 revenge Greece? Why do we delay setting fire to the town?' They 
 were all heated with wine, and in that drunken condition immedi- 
 ately rose to burn that city they had spared when armed. The 
 king showed them the example, and was the first to set fire to the 
 palace, after which his guests, servants and concubines did the 
 same. . . . This was the end of the noblest city of the east." 
 
 Concerning the influence on Alexander of the musi- 
 cian Timotheus, whom Dryden makes the moving spirit 
 of the scene, Quintus Curtius says: 
 
 "He was very much taken with Timotheus, who was very famous 
 in that profession, for this man, accommodating his art to Alexan- 
 der's humour, did once so ravish him by Phrygian airs that he 
 seemed all in a transport, and actuated as it were by some inspira- 
 tion, hastened to his arms as if the enemy had been just at 
 hand." 
 
 The scene in Dryden 's poem is strikingly drawn. It 
 is a typical oriental feast or festival; the conqueror is 
 seated on a gorgeous throne, and by his side is Thais, 
 his favorite; about him are his heroes, crowned with 
 roses and myrtles, as was the custom. Timotheus, the 
 most famous musician of his time, is conspicuous among 
 the music-makers. This is the Timotheus of Whom it is 
 said that he charged double fees to all pupils who had 
 been taught music by other teachers.
 
 40 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 The great musician begins, as was the universal custom 
 on sudh occasions, by singing a song in praise of the 
 person in whose honor the feast was given. "The song 
 began from Jove," — that is, the song began by relating 
 the legend that Jove was the father of Alexander, having 
 appeared to Olympias, Alexander's mother, in the form 
 of a serpent, and that the conquerer was therefore him- 
 self a god. Alexander had some time before this con- 
 sulted the oracle of Amnion in the Libyan Desert and 
 the oracle had saluted him as a son of Zeus or Jove ; ' ' and 
 he returned with the conviction that he was indeed a 
 god." For challenging Alexander's divinity Callis- 
 thenes, a nephew of Aristotle, was tortured and put to 
 death. In fact, his father was Philip of Macedon and 
 his mother Ol^mipias, daughter of Neoptolemus, king of 
 Epirus, but his marvelous military feats had made the 
 superstitious think he was more than human. And so 
 the listening crowd shouts, "A present deity!" and "the 
 vaulted roofs rebound." Alexander assumes the attitude 
 and manners of a god, and "seems to shake the spheres" 
 with his might and power. It is a gorgeous, splendid 
 and barbaric oriental picture which Dryden presents. 
 
 In stanza three, Timotheus takes another theme for his 
 song, the praise of Bacchus, the god of wine. ]\Iean- 
 while the effects of the wine itself as well as those of the 
 music are very evident. 
 
 These effects on Alexander are mentioned in stanza 
 four. In his imagination he fights his battles over again, 
 routing his foes and slaying the slain. He grows so vain 
 that he defies heaven and eartli.
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 41 
 
 Timotheus, seeing this, changes his tune and cheeks 
 the Conqueror's pride. He sings a song of pity for 
 Darius, lung of Persia, fallen from his high estate, whom 
 Alexander seems to have had some genuine sympathy 
 for. 
 
 Next to pity is love, and so Alexander is in the proper 
 frame of mind for Timotheus to sing to him of love, 
 which he does in stanza five, in soft sweet Lydian meas- 
 ures. War, honor, fighting, these things are not to be 
 compared with love. The crowds seem to like this song 
 best of all, and so Love was crowned, but Music won the 
 cause. Meanwhile the conqueror of the world was con- 
 quered by wine and music and love. 
 
 The climax is presented in stanza six. The master 
 musician undertakes to rouse the king from his drunken 
 stupor with a song of revenge. He makes the ghosts of 
 the slain Grecian soldiers appear in the festal-hall in 
 the form of Furies with snakes hissing in their hair, and 
 calling for fiery vengeance on the Persian houses. The 
 princes applaud, Thais leads the way, the king seizes a 
 torch, and the palaces of Persepolis are burned to the 
 ground. "In a fit of drunkenness, at the instigation of 
 Thais, he set fire to Persepolis, the wonder of the world, 
 and reduced it to a heap of ashes. ' * 
 
 Thus, long ago, Timotheus with flute and lyre and 
 song was able to raise a mortal to the skies in his own 
 imagination, but when St. Cecilia invented the organ 
 slie was able to draw even the angels about !her.
 
 42 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won 
 By Philip's warlike soh: 
 Aloft in awful state 
 The godlike hero sate 
 
 On his imperial throne ; 5 
 
 His valiant peers were placed around, 
 Their brows wdth roses and with myrtles bound, 
 (So should desert in arms be crowned;) 
 The lovely Thais, by his side. 
 Sate like a blooming eastern bride 10 
 
 In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 
 Happy, happy, happy pair! 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave deserves the fair. 15 
 
 Timotheus, placed on high 
 
 Amid the tuneful quire, 
 
 "With flying fingers touched the lyre : 
 The trembling notes ascend the sky. 
 
 for Persia icon (line 1) — Persia was won by Alexander In the 
 great battle of Arbela, October, 331 B. C, but several other battles 
 were fought afterward. Darius bad between half a million and a 
 million men ; Alexander bad fifty thousand. Darius lost at least three 
 hundred thousand.
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 43 
 
 The heavenly joys inspire. 20 
 
 The song began from Jove 
 Who left his blissful seats above, 
 (Such is the power of mighty love,) 
 A dragon's fiery form belied the god: 
 Sublime on radiant spires he rode 25 
 
 When he to fair Olympia pressed, 
 And while he sought her snowy breast ; 
 Then round her slender waist he curled, 
 And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the 
 
 world. 
 The 'listening crowd admire the lofty sound, 30 
 
 "A present deity!" they shout around: 
 "A present deity!" the vaulted roofs rebound: 
 With ravished ears 
 The monarch hears, 
 
 Assumes the god, 35 
 
 Affects to nod, 
 And seems to shake the spheres. 
 
 3 
 
 The praise of Bacchus -then the sweet musician sung, 
 Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young; 
 
 The jolly god in triumph comes ; 40 
 
 Sound the trumpets ; beat the drums ; 
 
 Flushed with a purple grace 
 
 He shows his honest face ; 
 Now give the hautboys breath ; he comes, he comes ; 
 
 belied the god (2-1) — counterfeited Jove. 
 
 Olinnpia (26) — Alexander's mother's name was Olympias. 
 
 assumes the God (35) — Assumes the manner of a god.
 
 44 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 Bacchus, ever fair and young, 45 
 
 Drinking joys did first ordain; 
 Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, 
 Drinking is the soldiers pleasure: 
 Rich the treasure, 
 
 Sweet the pleasure, 50 
 
 Sweet is pleasure after pain. 
 
 4 
 
 Soothed with the sound the king grew vain ; 
 
 Fought all his battles o'er again, 
 And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the 
 slain. 
 The master saw the madness rise, 55 
 
 IKs glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes ; 
 And, while he heaven and earth defied. 
 Changed his hand, and checked his pride. 
 
 He chose a mournful muse 
 
 Soft pity to infuse : 60 
 
 He sung Darius great and good, 
 
 By too severe a fate 
 Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, 
 Fallen from his high estate 
 
 fought his battles o'er again (53) — His chief battles -were Arbola, 
 331 B. C. ; IsKus, 333 ; Franicus, 334 ; all against Darius the Tcr- 
 filan ; and the sack of Thebes and the siege of Troy. 
 
 The master (55) — Timotheus. The words "his" and "he" in the 
 next three lines refer to Alexander, except In the phrase — "changed 
 his hand," where it refers to the musician, who changed his tune. 
 
 Darius (CI) — Darius III, King of Persia, a monarch of mild and 
 amiable character. Fie was several times defeated by Alexander. He 
 was murdered by the satrap of Bactria and his body was sent to 
 Persepolis by Alexander to be buried with the other monarchs of 
 Persia.
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 45 
 
 And weltering in his blood; 65 
 
 Deserted at his utmost need 
 By those his former bounty fed, 
 On the bare earth exposed he lies 
 "With not a friend to close his eyes. 
 With downcast looks the joyless victor sate 70 
 
 Revolving in his altered soul 
 
 The various turns of chance below ; 
 And now and then a sigh he stole, 
 And tears began to flow. 
 
 The mighty master smiled to see 75 
 
 That love was in the next degree ; 
 'Twas but a kindred sound to move, 
 For pity melts the mind to love. 
 
 Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, 
 
 Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. 80 
 
 "War," he sung, "is toil and trouble*, 
 Honour but an empty bubble, 
 
 Never ending, still beginning, 
 Fighting still, and stall destroying: 
 
 If the world be worth thy winning, 85 
 
 Think, oh think it worth enjoying : 
 
 Lovely Thais sits beside thee. 
 
 Take the good the gods provide thee. 
 The many rend the skies with loud applause ; 
 
 The mighty master (75) — Timotheus. 
 
 Lydian ttieasures (79) — "The designation of one of the modes in 
 ancient Greek music, characterized as soft and effeminate" — The Ox- 
 ford Dictionary. Stanza 5, in which this phrase occurs, is soft, liquid, 
 "Lydian." Notice the feminine or double rhymes.
 
 46 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause. 90 
 The prince, unable to conceal his pain, 
 Gazed on the fair 
 Who caused his care. 
 And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 
 Sighed and looked, and sighed again ; 95 
 
 At length with love and wine at once oppressed 
 The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 
 
 6 
 
 Now strike the golden lyre again : 
 A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. 
 Break his bands of sleep asunder 100 
 
 And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. 
 Hark, hark ! the horrid sound 
 Has raised up his head : 
 As awaked from the dead 
 And amazed, he stares around. 105 
 
 "Revenge, revenge," Timotheus cries, 
 
 "See the Furies arise: 
 See the snakes that they rear. 
 How they hiss in their hair. 
 
 And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! 110 
 Behold a ghastly band, 
 Each a torch in his hand ! 
 Those are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain 
 And unburied remain 
 
 Tiis pain (91) — bis passion of love. 
 
 8CC. the Furies arinc, (107) — Desoribod in mytliolosy as liaving tliolr 
 bodies covered witli black, serpents twined in their hair, and blood 
 dripping from their eyes.
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 47 
 
 Inglorious on the plain: 115 
 
 Give the vengeance due 
 
 To the valiant crew, 
 Behold how they toss their torches on high, 
 How they point to the Persian abodes, 
 And glittering temples of their hostile gods. ' ' 120 
 
 The princes applaud with a furious joy ; 
 And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; 
 
 Thais led the way 
 
 To lig'ht him to his prey, 
 And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. 125 
 
 7 
 Thus long ago. 
 Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, 
 Wliile organs j^et were mute 
 Timotheus, to his breathing flute 
 
 And sounding lyre, 130 
 
 Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. 
 At last divine Cecilia came, 
 Inventress of the vocal frame; 
 The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store 
 
 Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 135 
 
 And added length to solemn sounds, 
 "With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. 
 Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
 Or both divide the crown ; 
 
 Uke another Helen fired another Troy. (125) — Helen, wife of 
 Menelans, King of Sparta, eloped with Paris, son of Priam, King of 
 Troy. Menelaus to avenge his wrong, induced the allied armies of 
 Greece to attack Troy, and after a siege of ten years the city was 
 taken and burnt to the ground. 
 
 the vocal Jramc (133) — the organ.
 
 48 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 
 
 He raised a mortal to the skies; 140 
 
 She drew an angel down. 
 
 — John Dryden. 
 
 He raised a mortal to the shies (140) — by the power of music 
 he raised big hearers from earth to heaven, a familiar figure of speech. 
 
 She drew an angel doicn (141) — refers to the legend that an angel 
 left the cbolr8 above to listen to the more entrancing music of St. 
 Cecilia. 
 
 Professor Gayley (English Poetry, Its Principles and Progress) 
 draws attention to the fact that the rhyme-scheme changes with 
 each new thought thus (stanza 1) a, a, b, b, a, Alexander and his 
 feast; (stanza 2) c, c, c, the peers; (stanza 3) d, d, d, Thais; 
 (stanza 4) e, f, f, Alexander and Thais. Similar changes occur 
 in subsequent stanzas. "While reading the poem, the student 
 should note, for each stanza, three things: (1) the kind of music 
 Timotheus is playing; (2) the effect of the music on Alexander; 
 and (3) the way in which the poet, by word-sounds and metrical 
 effects, pictures objectively the sound of the music, and subjectively 
 and more subtly the resulting mood of the great conqueror." 
 (Gayley.) Observe the frequent metrical changes — iambic, 
 trochaic, anapestic — the varying length of line, as well as the 
 rhyme-schemes and the onomatapoetic effects, used with such mar- 
 velous skill by Dryden in this ode. It offers excellent opportunity 
 for the study of poetic technique. 
 
 See Browning's Saul for the power of music in a noble cause.
 
 The Bard 
 
 49
 
 THE BARD 51 
 
 THE BARD 
 
 "These two odes The Progress of Poesy and The Bard espe- 
 cially tbe latter, are the most imaginative poetry Gray ever pro- 
 duced, and were distinctly in advance of the age. They were above 
 the popular conception of poetry, and their obscurity was increased 
 by their allusiveness. . . . Their obscurity was ridiculed, and 
 they were freely parodied." — William Lyon Phelps. 
 
 The Bard is still above the popular conception of 
 poetry, and its obscurity is still a stumbling-block. That 
 it is a great poem, and highly imaginative, there can be 
 no doubt ; and a careful interpretation will remove all 
 or most of its obscurities. The poem is based on a tra- 
 dition that Edward the First of England (1272-1307), 
 when he conquered Wales, ordered all the bards to be 
 put to death, to prevent their stirring up the patriotism 
 of the Welsh people with their songs and minstrelsy. 
 Green, in his History of the English People, says that the 
 massacre of the bards is a mere fable, but he gives an 
 interesting account of the influence of these ancient 
 Welsh poets in arousing the national feeling. In Book 
 III, Chapter 4, he says : 
 
 "At the hour of its lowest degradation the silence of Wales was 
 suddenly broken by a crowd of singers. The song of the twelfth 
 century burst forth, not from one bard or another, but from the 
 nation at large. . . . The spirit of the earlier bards, their joy in 
 battle, their love of freedom, broke out anew in ode after ode, in 
 songs extravagant, monotonous, often prosaic, but fused into 
 poetry by the intense fire of patriotism which glowed within them. 
 Every fight, every hero, had its verse. The names of the older 
 singers, of Taliesin, Aneurin and Llywarch Hen, were revived in 
 bold forgeries to animate the national resistance and to prophesy 
 victory. . . . Once in the pass Consilt a cry arose that the king 
 was slain, Henry of Essex flung down the royal standard, and the 
 king's desperate efforts could hardly save his army from utter
 
 52 THE BARD 
 
 rout. The bitter satire of the Welsh singers bade hira knight his 
 hor«e, since its speed had alone saved him from capture. . . . The 
 hopes of Wales rose higher and higher with each triumph of the 
 lord of Snowdon [Llewellyn]. His court was crowded with bardic 
 singers. Poet after poet sang of 'the Devastator of England.' Lesser 
 bards strung together Llewellyn's victories in rough jingle of rhyme, 
 and hounded him on to the slaughter. A fierce thirst for blood 
 runs through the abrupt, passionate verses of the court singers. 
 The supposed verses of Taliesin expressed the undying hope of a 
 restoration of the Cymry [Welsh]." 
 
 In Carte 's History of England, published in 1750, Vol- 
 ume II (in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) occurs the 
 following : 
 
 "The only set of men among the Welsh, that had reason to com- 
 plain of Edward's severity, were the bards who used to put those 
 of the ancient Britons in mind of the valiant deeds of their ances- 
 tors : he ordered them all to be hanged, as inciters of the people to 
 sedition." 
 
 Following is the thread of the story in the poem : 
 As the army of Edward march through a deep valley 
 in Wales they are stopped by the appearance of a ven- 
 erable bard who stands on a high cliff and pronounces a 
 curse upon the king and his army ; the ghosts of a band 
 of bards slain at Edward's command appear on a more 
 remote mountain and lake up the curse, combining with 
 it a prophecy of misfortune to Edward's descendants; 
 the ghostly bards vanish, and the first bard takes up the 
 theme once more, foretells the coming of true British 
 sovereigns and still greater poets to celebrate virtue and 
 valor, and to condemn vice and tyranny ; his song being 
 ended, the bard leaps headlong from the mountain into 
 the river ihat rolls at its feet. 
 
 The poem begins with the bard's curse upon the king, 
 followed by a description of the scene and its influence
 
 THE BARD 53 
 
 upon the king and his army. At line 33 the bard again 
 begins speaking; he laments the death of his fellow- 
 singers, Iloel, Llewellyn, Cadwallo, Urien, Modred, dear 
 lost companions of his tuneful art, but says that they 
 do not sleep, for at that moment their ghosts appear on 
 another cliff. At line 49 this * ' grisly band ' ' begin speak- 
 ing and continue for fifty lines or through lines 49 to 
 100 inclusive. In these fifty lines the ghostly band 
 "weave tlie winding-sheet of Edward's race," that is, 
 they predict the disasters that are to befall him and his 
 descendants. They tell how Edward the Second is to 
 be butchered in Berkeley Castle {liiies 53-56) ; how 
 Isabel of France, Edward the Second 's adulterous Queen 
 "the she- wolf e of France," is to be a curse to him and 
 to the country (lines 57-58) ; how her son Edward the 
 Third is to scourge her own country, France {lines 59- 
 62) ; how that mighty victor Edward the Third, is to die 
 abandoned by his children and courtiers, his son "the 
 sable warrior," the Black Prince, being dead {lines 
 63-70) ; how 'his successor, Kichard the Second, "the ris- 
 ing morn," is to begin his reign in magnificence {lines 
 71-76), but is to close his life by being starved to death 
 {lines 76-82) ; how the ruinous 'civil wars of York and 
 Lancaster — the Wars of the Roses — are to bring havoc 
 in their course, with many secret murders in the Tower 
 of London, including that of Henry the Sixth, "the meek 
 usurper" of line 90, in spite of his "Father's (Henry 
 the Fifth) fame," and his Queen's heroic struggle to 
 save him {lines 83-94) : and how Eleanor, the Queen of 
 Edward the First, is to lose her life, "the half of Ed- 
 ward's heart," by sucking the poison from a dagger-
 
 54 THE BARD 
 
 wound in her husband's side, thus saving his life {lines 
 97-99). 
 
 Here the band of ghostly bards disappear, and the 
 bard on the nearer cliff, after imploring them not to leave 
 him thus alone, takes up the prophecy and sees on Mount 
 Snowdon's height as it were the scroll of the future un- 
 rolled in visions of glory. He no longer bewails the 
 fact that King Arthur has not returned from fairy-land 
 as predicted and commonly believed, for he sees in the 
 House of Tudor a line of true British kings, they being 
 of Welsh blood (lines 100-110). Queen Elizabeth, who 
 was descended from a "Welsh chief and therefore of the 
 true British line, is the central figure of the vision in 
 lines 111-124. In lines 125-134 the bard sees future great 
 poets of England — Shakespeare moves "in buskined 
 measure," Milton's voice is heard from ''blooming 
 Eden," and the warblings of the succession of poets after 
 Milton's time "in long futurity" strike his prophetic 
 ear. 
 
 Lines 135-142 are addressed to King Edward — and 
 then the bard leaps from the rock and disappears in 
 the roaring tide. 
 
 The Bard is a "regular", or Pindaric, ode in imita- 
 tion of the famous odes of Pindar. A Pindaric ode 
 consists of a strophe, an antistrophe, and an epode — or 
 turn, counter-turn, and stand — the first of thorn sup- 
 posed to be sung by the chorus as they moved up one 
 side of the orchestra, the second as they moved down, 
 and the third as they stood. Sometimes the epode is 
 placed between the strophe and the antistrophe. The 
 rhyme-scheme of the strophe is the same as that of the
 
 THE BARD 65 
 
 antistroplie, but the epode has a different rhyme-scheme. 
 The strophe and the antistrophe are iambic; the epode, 
 trochaic. The lines vary in number of feet but the 
 strophe and antistrophe observe one metrical scheme 
 and the epode another. Each stanza may contain from 
 seven or eiglit verses (lines) to as many as thirty or 
 thirty-five, and thus the rhyme-scheme is sometimes very 
 complex. 
 
 THE BARD 
 
 A PINDARIC ODE 
 1 
 
 Strophe 
 
 *'Euin seize thee, ruthless King! 
 Confusion on thy banners wait, 
 Though f ann 'd by Conquest 's crimson wing 
 They mock the air with idle state. 
 Helm, nor hauberk's tivisted mail, 5 
 
 Nor e 'en thy virtues. Tyrant, shall avail 
 To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, 
 From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!" 
 
 Such were the sounds, that o 'er the crested pride 
 Of the first Edward scatter 'd wild dismay, 10 
 
 As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side 
 He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
 Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance ; 
 "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch 'd his quivering 
 lance. 
 
 Camhria (line 8) — Wales.
 
 56 THE BARD 
 
 Antistrophe 
 
 On a rock whose haughty brow 15 
 
 Frowns o 'er old Conway 's foaming flood, 
 Robed in the sable garb of woe, 
 With haggard eyes the Poet stood 
 (Loose his beard, and hoary hair 
 
 Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air) 20 
 
 And with a Master 's hand, and Prophet 's fire, 
 Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre : 
 
 "Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave, 
 Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! 
 'er thee, King ! their hundred arms they wave, 25 
 Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe ; 
 Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, 
 To high-born Hoel 's harp, or soft Llewellyn 's lay. 
 
 Epode 
 
 "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, 
 That hush'd the stormy main; 30 
 
 Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed; 
 Mountains, ye mourn in vain 
 Modred, whose magic song 
 
 Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head. 
 On dreary Arvon's shore they lie, 35 
 
 Smear 'd with gore, and ghastly pale: 
 Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail ; 
 The famish 'd eas'le screams, and passes by. 
 
 Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, 
 
 loone Ms ieard, etc. (19) — This description is like that of an 
 old Hebrew prophet. 
 
 Plinlimmon (34) — the name of a Wolsli mountain.
 
 THE BARD 57 
 
 Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes, 40 
 
 Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, 
 Ye died amidst your dying country's cries — 
 
 No more I weep. They do not sleep. 
 On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, 
 
 I see them sit, they linger yet, 45 
 
 Avengers of their native land: 
 "With me in dreadful harmony they join, 
 And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line : — 
 
 2 
 
 Strophe 
 
 " 'Weave the warp, and weave the woof, 
 The winding sheet of Edward's race. 50 
 
 Give ample room, and verge enough 
 The characters of hell to trace. 
 ]\Iark the year, and mark the night. 
 When Severn shall re-echo with affright 
 The shrieks of death, through Berkeley's roofs 55 
 
 that ring. 
 Shrieks of an agonizing King ! 
 She- Wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs. 
 That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled Mate, 
 From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs 
 The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him wait ! 60 
 Amazement in his van, with Flight combin 'd, 
 And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind. 
 
 grisly (44) — horrible. 
 
 verge (51) — margin, space. 
 
 Eevern (54) — A river in the eastern part of Wales. 
 
 amazement (61) — confusion.
 
 68 THE BARD 
 
 Antistrophe 
 
 " 'Mighty victor, mighty lord! 
 Low on his funeral couch he lies! 
 
 No pitying heart, no eye, afford 65 
 
 A tear to grace his obsequies. 
 Is the sable warrior fled f 
 Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. 
 The swarm, that in thy noontide beam were bom ? 
 Gone to salute the rising morn. 70 
 
 Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, 
 While proudly riding o 'er the azure realm 
 In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ; 
 Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; 
 Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 75 
 
 That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey. 
 
 Epode 
 
 " 'Fill high the sparkling bowl. 
 The rich repast prepare. 
 Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast : 
 Close by the regal chair 80 
 
 Fell Thirst and Famine scowl 
 A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. 
 Heard ye the din of battle bray. 
 Lance to lance, and horse to horse? 
 Long years of havoc urge their destined course, 85 
 
 And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. 
 Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame. 
 
 Towers of Julius (87) — Tho tower of London, the oldest part of 
 which Julius Caesar was thought to have built.
 
 THE BARD 59 
 
 "With many a foul and midnight murder fed, 
 Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame, 
 
 And spare the meek usurper's holy head. 90 
 
 Above, beloAv, the rose of snow, 
 
 Twin 'd with her blushing foe, we spread : 
 The bristled Boar in infant gore 
 
 Wallows beneath the thorny shade. 
 Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, 95 
 
 Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom. 
 
 3 
 
 Strophe 
 
 " 'Edward, lo! to sudden fate 
 (Weave we the woof. The thread is sptm). 
 Half of thy heart we consecrate. 
 (The web is wove. The work is done.) * 100 
 
 Stay, oh stay ! nor thus forlorn 
 Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn! 
 In yon bright track, that fires the western skies, 
 They melt, they vanish from my eyes. 
 
 But oh ! what solemn scenes on Sno wdon 's height 105 
 Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll? 
 Visions of glory, spare my aching sight, 
 Ye unborn Ages, crowd not on my soul ! 
 No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail. 
 All-hail, ye genuine Kings, Britannia's Issue, hail! 110 
 
 the bristled hoar (93) — Richard the Third, because a silver boar 
 was his badge. 
 
 Half of thy heart, etc. (99) — See Tennyson's Dream of Fair 
 Women. 
 
 Snoivdon (105) — The chief mountaia in Wales.
 
 60 THE BARD 
 
 Antistrophe 
 
 "Girt "with many a baron bold 
 Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; 
 And gorgeous Dames, and Statesmen old 
 In bearded majesty, appear. 
 
 In the midst a Forai divine ! 115 
 
 Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-Line ; 
 Her lion-port, her awe -commanding face, 
 Attemper 'd sweet to virgin-grace. 
 "What strings symphonious tremble in the air, 
 What strains of vocal transport round her play! 120 
 Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear; 
 They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. 
 Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, 
 Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-colonr'd wings. 
 
 Ejyode 
 
 "The verse adorn again 125 
 
 Fierce War, and faithful Love, 
 And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest. 
 
 In buskin 'd measures move 
 
 Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, 
 With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. 130 
 
 A voice, as of the cherub-choir. 
 Gales from blooming Eden bear; 
 And distant warblings lessen on my ear, 
 
 That lost in long futurity expire. 
 
 her lion-port (117) — Quoon Elizabeth's pommanaing mien. 
 Taliessin (121)— Chief of the Welsh bards.
 
 THE BARD 61 
 
 Fond impious man, think 'st thou yon sanguine cloud 135 
 
 Rais'd by thy breath, has quench 'd the orb of day? 
 To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, 
 
 And warms the nations with redoubled ray. 
 Enough for me ; with joy I see 
 
 The different doom our fates assign. 140 
 
 Be thine despair, and sceptred care ; 
 
 To triumph, and to die, are mine." 
 He spake, and headlong from the mountain's height 
 Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night, 
 
 — Thomas Gray. 
 
 The infant son of Edward I. was giren the title of "Prince of 
 Wales," which the eldest son of the remaining sovereign has borne 
 since that time. "According to the old story," says Cheney (A 
 Short History of England, page 220) "Edward promised to give to the 
 Welsh people as a prince a native of Wales and one who could not 
 speak a word of English. He then presented to them his infant 
 son who had just been born at the Welsh castle of Carnarvon."
 
 Elegy Written in a Country 
 Church-yard 
 
 63
 
 ELEGY 65 
 
 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY 
 CHURCH-YARD 
 
 Gray's Elegy is the most popular and the most widely 
 read poem in the English language ; and the old church- 
 yard at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire is as much 
 visited by tourists as any spot in England, except Strat- 
 ford-on-Avon. 
 
 The old cemetery is still a "country church-yard." 
 The nearest post-office is two miles away, and the rural 
 scenes described by Gray at the middle of the 18th 
 century still meet the eye. Still the lowing herd wind 
 slowly o'er the lea; still the plowman homeward plods 
 his weary way; still the owl complains from his ivy- 
 mantled tower; beneath the same yew-trees' shade the 
 forefathers of the hamlet sleep. At Windsor Castle, 
 three miles away, the boast of heraldry and the pomp 
 of power still prevail, for Windsor is a favourite resi- 
 dence of the King; and every evening at eight o'clock 
 the curfew bell at Windsor still tolls the knell of parting 
 day. The only change noticeable from Gray's descrip- 
 tion is that the sheep have lost their bells — drowsy 
 tinklings no longer lull the distant folds. Hard by the 
 same church-yard still stands the wood where the poet 
 was wont to walk in melancholy mood, and a short dis- 
 tance away at Burnham Beeches is pointed out the 
 nodding beech that still wreathes its old fantastic roots 
 so high, where at noontide he would stretch his listless 
 length. It is a peaceful, dreamy landscape in one of the 
 most beautiful parts of England. The visitor may
 
 66 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A 
 
 learn, if he is sufficiently interested to spend a day and 
 make inquiry, that the curfew referred to was doubtless 
 the one at AVindsor, that the ivy-mantled tower is the 
 tower of St. Giles Church in the midst of the cemetery 
 and still covered with ivy ; and he may see the English 
 country life much as it was at the time the poem was 
 written. In this old St. Giles church lie buried many 
 persons of more or less renown, and tablets are there 
 to their memory. It was the custom there, as elsewhere, 
 to inter persons of distinction within the church and 
 the humble folk in the church-yard. Gray himself be- 
 longed to the latter class, and he lies buried in the same 
 grave with his mother and his aunt immediately out- 
 side of the church. All about are ancient tombstones, 
 many of them so weather-worn and moss-covered that 
 their inscriptions can no longer be made out. 
 
 The Elegy is composed of three parts. The first three 
 stanzas describe the quiet landscape, at nightfall: the 
 cattle are slowly crossing the field, the plowman is com- 
 ing home from his work hungry and tired, the tinkling 
 sound of the sheep-bells is heard in the distance, the 
 evening insects are flying around, the moon is up, and in 
 the church tower an owl is heard as the sounds of the 
 curfew bell float over from "Windsor or from Eton. 
 
 Stanzas four to twenty-three inclusive constitute the 
 main body of the elegy. Yonder under the ancient elms 
 and yew-trees sleep the men who used to fell the trees, 
 plow the fields and reap the harvests. Their joys were 
 homely and their destiny obscure, but the high and pow- 
 erful need not mock — they must all at last come to the 
 same low estate in the grave. No monument, however
 
 COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD 67 
 
 high, no tribute of honor, no voice of flattery can bring 
 them back. And perhaps some of these lowly fore- 
 fathers might have been famous and powerful too if they 
 had only had the opportunity. Some of them may have 
 had the latent possibilities of a Hampden or a Milton or 
 a Cromwell, but their lot forbade. And so here are their 
 names on the humble gravestones, with texts of scripture 
 and tributes from those who loved them. Surely these 
 humble men are entitled to these memorials, for no one 
 likes to leave this life without some loving word. 
 
 The remainder of the poem is about the poet himself, 
 his daily life and moods, and concludes with the epitaph 
 written for himself. It is interesting to notice how 
 perfectly Gray describes himself in the last eight stan- 
 zas. It was his custom during that part of every year 
 which he spent at Stoke Poges to take early morning 
 walks to meet the sun upon the upland lawn, and through 
 the wood near where his monument now stands, across 
 the heath, and near his favorite tree. He was a youth to 
 fortune unknown, but his fame was rising about his ears 
 during his own life. Science and knowledge certainly 
 smiled on his humble birth, for he was doubtless the 
 greatest scholar in England in his day ; and melancholy 
 marked him for her own. In a letter to his friend West 
 at Oxford he wi^ote: "Low spirits are my true and 
 faithful companions ; they get up with me, go to bed with 
 me, make journeys and returns as I do . . . but most 
 commonly we sit alone together." All of his life he 
 was melancholy and more or less morbid. His bounty 
 (generosity) was large, and his soul was honest, sincere, 
 and simple. He was offered the office of poet-laureate,
 
 68 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A 
 
 and refused. He said he would "rather be a sergeant- 
 trumpeter or pin-maker to the palace." Previously he 
 had declined the degree of Doctor of Laws from the 
 Univei'sity of Aberdeen. In return for these traits of 
 character he had gained his only wish — a friend (Ime 
 124). In this line Gray probably refers to Horace Wal- 
 pole, who was his intimate associate at Eton and Cam- 
 bridge, with whom he traveled on the Continent, who 
 looked after the publication of his poems, and at whose 
 famous "Strawberry Hill" residence Gray spent a part 
 of every year for the last twenty-five years of his life. 
 Other friends were Richard West, son of a Lord Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland, and William Mason, who became Gray's 
 biographer, but the tribute in the "epitaph", as previ- 
 ously stated, is probably to Walpole — notwithstanding 
 the fact that at one time they had had a famous quarrel. 
 
 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD 
 
 (Tue text here given is that copied by Edmund Gosse from one 
 of the earliest editions and is authoritative. It is slightly different 
 from most modern editions.) 
 
 The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
 The lowing herd wind slowly o 'er the lea, 
 
 Curfew — French couvre-feu (line 1) — cover-fire. A custom in- 
 troduced after tbe Norman Conquest for protection against fire, as most 
 of the houses were then wood. Now all of the houses in England 
 are brick, stone, or plaster. The ringing of thf "curfew" now generally 
 means that chi'dren of a certain age must get indoors, and off streets.
 
 COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD 69 
 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 2 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 5 
 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
 
 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds : 
 
 3 
 
 Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r 
 
 The mopeing owl does to the moon complain 10 
 
 Of such as, wand 'ring near her secret bow'r. 
 
 Molest her ancient sclitary reign. 
 
 4 
 
 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a mould 'ring heap, 
 
 Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 15 
 
 The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 5 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 
 
 The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed. 
 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 20 
 
 solemn stillness holds (6) — A solemn stillness pervades the 
 air. 
 
 rude (16) — uncultured. 
 
 straw-built shed (18) — Many sheds and even miany residences In 
 the British Isles are still thatched or covered with straw. 
 
 lowly bed (20) — does not here mean the grave.
 
 70 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A 
 
 6 
 
 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
 Or busy housewife ply her evening care: 
 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
 Or climb his knee the envied kiss to share. 
 
 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 25 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: 
 
 How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 
 How bow 'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! 
 
 8 
 
 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 30 
 
 Nor Grandeur hear ■\^ath a disdainful smile 
 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 35 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 10 
 
 Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault, 
 If Mem'ry o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise.
 
 COUNTKY CHURCH- YARD 71 
 
 Where through the long-drawn isle and fretted vault 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 40 
 
 11 
 
 Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
 Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 
 Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death? 
 
 12 
 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 45 
 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 
 Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 
 
 Or wak'd to extasy the living lyre. 
 
 13 
 
 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 
 
 Rich with, the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 50 
 
 Chill Penury repress 'd their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of the soul. 
 
 14 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
 The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 55 
 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 fretted vault (39) — oraamented with fretwork, or small bands 
 crossed and interlacod. It has been pointed out that the service at 
 King's College chapel, Cambridge, Inspired this couplet. 
 
 storied urn (41) — a memorial urn, with inscriptions. 
 
 animated hunt (41) —a life-like bust. 
 
 provoke (43) — call forth. 
 
 living lyre (48) — poetry.
 
 72 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A 
 
 15 
 
 Some village-Hampden that with dauntless breast 
 The little Tyrant of his fields withstood, 
 
 Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 
 
 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 60 
 
 16 
 
 Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, 
 The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 
 To scatter plenty o 'er a smiling land. 
 And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, 
 
 17 
 
 Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone 65 
 
 Their growing virtues, but their crimes oonfin'd; 
 
 Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind. 
 
 village-TIampden (57) — John Hampden, a famous English patriot, 
 one of the first opponents of the tax of ship-monoy. 
 
 Uitle Tyrant (58) — In comparison with Charles I. who was a 
 great tyrant. 
 
 Some Cromicell guiltless of his country's blood (60) — This line is 
 not true to history, but in Gray's time it was the belief that Crom- 
 well had brought about the death of Charles. For example, Gold- 
 smith says in his very popular History of England that Cromwell 
 "secretly solicited and contrived the death of Charles I." We linow 
 now that this is wholly untrue. 
 
 Th' applause of list'ning senates, etc, (61) — aa William Pitt, Lord 
 Chatham, was then doing. 
 
 The next three lines (in stanza 16) aaay refer to Walpole (father 
 of Gray's special friend, Horace Walpole), who was closing his long 
 minis.try (1721-1742) when Gray began the Elegy. 
 
 shut the gates of mercy (68) — show no mercy. — Shaiespearc. 
 (Henry V,) 111, 3, says: — "The gates of mercy shall be all shut up."
 
 COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD 73 
 
 18 
 
 The struggling pangs of conscious truth, to hide, 
 
 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 70 
 
 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
 With incense kindled at the Muse 's flame. 
 
 19 
 
 Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
 Their sober wishes never learn 'd to stray ; 
 
 Along the cool sequester 'd vale of life 75 
 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 
 
 20 
 
 Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect 
 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
 With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, 
 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 80 
 
 21 
 
 Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse, 
 
 The place of fame and elegy supply : 
 And many a holy text around she strews, 
 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 struggling pangs of conscious (69) — Truth Is here personified and 
 represented as struggling for birth. Their lot rendered it unneces- 
 sary for thorn to conceal their opinions with regard to what they 
 knew to he truth. 
 
 To quench, etc. (70) — They had not learned to be shameless In 
 wrong-doing. 
 
 Or heap the shrine, etc. (71) — referring to the custom in the 
 18th century of using fulsome flattery in the dedication of poetical 
 or other literary works to the nobility.
 
 74 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A 
 
 22 
 
 For who to dumb Forgetfuluess a prey, 85 
 
 This pleasing anxious being e'er resign 'd, 
 
 Left the warm precincts of the chearful day, 
 Nor east one longing lin'gring look behind? 
 
 23 
 
 On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 
 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 90 
 
 E 'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
 E 'en in our Ashes live their wonted Fires. 
 
 24 
 
 For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead, 
 Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; 
 
 If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 95 
 
 Some kindred Spirit shall inquire thy Fate, — 
 
 25 
 
 Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say, 
 'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 
 
 Brushing with hasty steps the dews aM'ay 
 
 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 100 
 
 stanzas 22 and 23 mean that no one leaves this life with entire 
 willingness; even from the grave the voice seems to call back to 
 the friends and scenes of life. 
 
 pious (90) — Here the meaning is dutiful. 
 
 For thee (93) — refers to the poet himself — as for thee. 
 
 Stanza 24 Is involved but its meaning Is, if some kindred spirit 
 should read this poem and, passing that way, should inquire the fate 
 of its author, perhaps some old man will say, etc.
 
 COUNTRY CHURCH- YARD 76 
 
 26 
 
 'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
 That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
 
 His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
 And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 
 
 27 
 
 * Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 105 
 
 Mutt 'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, 
 
 Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn. 
 Or craz'd with care, or cross 'd in hopeless love. 
 
 28 
 
 *One morn I miss'd him on the custom 'd hill. 
 
 Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree; 110 
 
 Another came ; nor yet beside the rill, 
 
 Nor up the lawn, not at the wood was he : 
 
 29 
 
 'The next, with dirges due in sad array 
 (Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him born. 
 
 Approach and read (for thou cans't read) the lay, 115 
 Grav 'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn. ' 
 
 Jcr thou canst read (115) — It is an old uneducated peasant that 
 is speaking. It is as if tie said : 'Tow can read -tlie epitaph, al- 
 though I cannot."
 
 76 ELEGY 
 
 The Epitaph 
 
 30 
 
 Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth 
 
 A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown. 
 
 Fair Science frown 'd not on his humble birth, 
 
 And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. 120 
 
 31 
 
 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 
 Heav 'n did a recompence as largely send : 
 
 He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear. 
 He gain'd from Heav'n ( 'twas all he wish'd) a friend. 
 
 32 
 
 No farther seek his merits to disclose, 125 
 
 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
 
 (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) 
 The bosom of his Father and his God. 
 
 — Thomas Gray. 
 
 "The Epitaph" — written by Gray as a description of himself. 
 
 St. Giles churcb, standing in the midst of the churchyard, -waa 
 built in 1330 on the site of a church built in 1107. It is well 
 preserved and contains many interesting memorials. 
 
 Compare with this Elegy such other famous English elegies as 
 Milton's Lycidas, Shelley's Adonais, Tennyson's In Memoriam, and 
 Matthew Arnold's Thyrais.
 
 The Deserted Village 
 
 77
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 79 
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 The Deserted Village is a didactic and descriptive 
 poem; but unlike most didactic poems it is not a bore, 
 and unlike most descriptive poems it is not unprofitable. 
 Indeed, its descriptions are so supremely good that they 
 were long ago given a permanent place in English litera- 
 ture ; and its political economy is coming, at last after a 
 century and a third, to be the watchword of great na- 
 tional movements in both Goldsmith's own country 
 and the United States. Goldsmith held that the perma- 
 nent strength of a nation must rest upon its small inde- 
 pendent land-holders, that the life of such people is the 
 happiest and freest, and that the accumulation of great 
 landed estates, with its accompanying luxury, was a bad 
 thing for the country. He deplored the laws and cus- 
 toms which made it possible for powerful lords and 
 squires to crush out the small land-holders, convert the 
 land into parks, hunting-grounds, and great grazing 
 tracts, and thus make it necessary for the yeomen and 
 peasants to flock to the cities or emigrate to America. 
 For a hundred years or more every editor of Goldsmith 
 spoke slightingly of this theory, saying one after an 
 other, "We now know this to be faulty political econ- 
 omy." The fact is, we now know it to be the soundest 
 political economy ; and everywhere, both in England and 
 America, the cry today is, ''Back to the farm!" One 
 of the greatest national questions in England today is 
 how to correct the very evils which Goldsmith deplored 
 one hundred and thirty-five years ago. That the evils
 
 80 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 complained of by him were not the fiction of a poetic 
 imagination is evident from abundant contemporary evi- 
 dence. Goldsmith wrote from first-hand knowledge. In 
 his dedication of The Deserted Village to Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds he says: 
 
 "I have taken all possible pains in my country excursions, for 
 these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege, and all 
 my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real 
 which I here attempt to display." 
 
 John Cowper, writing in 1732, said, * ' When these com- 
 mons came to be enclosed and converted into pasture the 
 Ruin of the Poor is a natural consequence; they being 
 bought out by the lord of the Manor or some other per- 
 son of substance." He said that in thirty years more 
 than twenty villages ill his vicinity were depopulated. 
 "In some parishes 120 families of Farmers and Cottagers 
 have in a few years been reduced to four, to two, aye, 
 and sometimes to but one family, and if the practice of 
 enclosing continues much longer we may expect to see 
 all the great estates ingrossed by a few Hands, and the 
 industrious Farmers and Cottagers almost entirely root- 
 ed out of the Kingdom." A pamphlet signed "A Coun- 
 try Farmer" and printed in 1786 (sixteen years after 
 The Deserted Village) shows that in one part of England 
 several hundred villages, which forty years before con- 
 tained four hundred to five hundred inhabitants each, 
 then had only forty to eighty each — "some only one 
 poor decrepit man or woman, housed by the occupiers 
 of the lands, who live in another parish, to prevent their 
 being obliged to pay towards the support of the poor 
 who live in the next parish." The writer of the pamph-
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 81 
 
 let mentions one case in which twenty farms were con- 
 solidated into four and the whole area devoted to graz- 
 ing, sixty cottages being pulled down. Two villages in 
 Leicestershire within two miles of each other, which had 
 contained thirty-four or thirty-five dwellings each, had 
 been reduced in one case to three houses and in the other 
 to one house. Then he goes on to say, "Many of the 
 small farmers who have been deprived of their livelihood 
 have sold their stock-in-trade and have raised from £50 
 to £100 with which they procured themselves and their 
 families a passage to America. ' ' 
 
 John "Wedge, writing in 1793 of his own county of 
 Warwickshire, says, "The hardy yeomanry of country 
 villages have been driven for employment to Birming- 
 ham, Coventry, and other manufacturing towns." In 
 the time of Cromwell there were at least 180,000 yeomen 
 and small land-owners, but a hundred years later they 
 were being recognized as a class of the past. During the 
 ten years from 1762 to 1772, just when Goldsmith was 
 ■VNTiting The Deserted Tillage, it is known that more than 
 1,800 families, comprising about 9,000 persons, were, in 
 consequence of " inclosures, " sent adrift in four coun- 
 ties alone, and the process continued without interrup- 
 tion for many years afterwards. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that the laws and customs, 
 particularly the latter, have made it possible for most of 
 the land of England to come into the hands of a com- 
 paratively few people, where it still remains. Fortescue 
 says that in the reign of Henry VI in no country of 
 Europe were small proprietors so numerous as in Eng- 
 land. "They are they that in times past made all
 
 82 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 France afraid" of England, says Harrison. Today 
 two-thirds of the whole area of England and Wales be- 
 longs to the members of the House of Lords or other men 
 of great wealth. The purpose of such organizations as 
 the "English Land Restoration League" is to get these 
 great estates divided up and placed once more in the 
 hands of the people. 
 
 The Enclosure Act, which brought about the results 
 deplored by Goldsmith, gave the lord of the manor a 
 right to enclose the common land, and at the time of 
 Goldsmith this act was being enforced to its fullest 
 extent. Between 1760 and 177-i as many as 700 private 
 Enclosure Acts were passed and at least 3,000,000 acres 
 of common land were thereby enclosed. The little land 
 holders were too poor to pay for the fencing and for the 
 expenses of the private act under which the enclosure 
 was made and the inevitable result followed. Mr. G. G. 
 Whiskard, of Wadham College, Oxford, says: 
 
 "The inevitable result followed. Almost immediately after each 
 enclosure the small proprietors sold their allotments at a sacrifice 
 to the lord of the manor and all, or nearly all, the village land fell 
 into the hands of a single wealthy proprietor. Even where the 
 small proprietor was able to pay his share of expenses and do his 
 own fencing, yet other expenses fell on him. He had no one to 
 represent his interests in Parliament, and in many of the private 
 Acts it is expressly provided that the lord of the manor, to whom 
 fell the greater share of the old common land, should be exempt 
 from paying any expenses, and should have his fencing done for 
 him at the joint cost of the other proprietors, among whom too the 
 whole of the expenses were divided. 
 
 "In short the enclosures took the common land of England from 
 the poor and gave it to the rich. It is true that one result of 
 this exchange was that the land was more profitably cultivated; 
 but this good was outweighed by many evils. Tlie small farmer 
 had perforce become a laborer, and the laborer, who had formerly 
 been able to get through the bad days of winter with the help of the
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 83 
 
 cow which he pastured on the common land, could now do so no 
 longer, for his pasture was taken from him. The result was wide- 
 spread distress and wholesale emigration. The laborer who emi- 
 grated was not missed ; his place was taken by machinery. It is 
 not altogether true, as Macaulay would have us believe, that the 
 dark side of Goldsmith's picture is drawn entirely from Ireland. 
 Many villages of England were depleted of their inhabitants, while 
 the status of the few that were left had changed from the status 
 of employer to that of laborer. A whole class — that of the small 
 farmer — had almost perished out of England, and its loss is felt to 
 this day." 
 
 "Under the Tudors," says Mr. Lloyd Sanders, of Christ Church 
 College, "the practice of enclosures together with the still more op- 
 pressive plan of converting arable land into pasture-land, became a 
 crying evil. . . . Bishop Latimer, in his famous Sermon on the 
 Plough, preached before the court of Edward VI, denounced the 
 nobles as 'enclosers, graziers, and rent-raisers'. One or two at- 
 tempts were made to check these practices. Henry VIII ordered 
 the houses which had been pulled down to be rebuilt, and limited the 
 number of sheep on each farm to 2,000 ; and the Protector Somerset 
 appointed a Royal Commission 'for the redress of enclosure'. Such 
 efforts, however, were of no avail, and complaints were frequent 
 through the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts. Later it came to 
 be thought necessary to obtain the sanction of Parliament for en- 
 closure. The first Local Enclosure Act was passed under Anne, and 
 since then the permission of the legislature has generally been re- 
 garded as a necessary preliminary to enclosure. Between the years 
 1700 and 1845 some 4,000 of these Acts were passed, and 7,17-5,000 
 acres of land consolidated, whereby the class of small yeoman be- 
 came almost extinct." 
 
 Some slight knowledge at least of the conditions here 
 briefly discussed is necessary to an understanding of 
 even the motive of The Deserted Village. Indeed one of 
 the great elements of value in the poem is its contribu- 
 tion to our knowledge of the social life of England in the 
 last half of the 18th century ; for it should be remembered 
 that the "Auburn" of the poem is an English village, 
 the life described is English life, and the conditions 
 English conditions, although the actual "Auburn" has 
 been identified with the village of Lissoy or Lishoy,
 
 84 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 Goldsmith's boyhood home in the county of Westmeath, 
 Ireland. "Lissoy," says Howett, "consists in fact of a 
 few common cottages by the road-side, in a flat and by 
 no means particularly interesting scene. A few hundred 
 yards beyond these cottages stand, at some distance 
 from the road, the ruins of the house where Goldsmith's 
 father lived. In the front view of the house is the 
 'decent church' of Kilkenny West, that literally 'tops 
 the neighboring hill ' ; and in a circuit of not more than 
 half a mile diameter around the house are 'the never- 
 failing brook', 'the busy mill', 'the hawthorn bush with 
 seats beneath the shade', in short every striking object 
 of the picture. There are, besides, many ruined houses 
 in the neighborhood, bespeaking a better state of popu- 
 lation than at present." 
 
 Goldsmith evidently took his childhood home as it 
 existed in his loving recollection, and gave it an English 
 setting. 
 
 But after all, the supremacy of The Deserted Village 
 lies not in its political economy or its value as a his- 
 torical document, but in its descriptions of village life 
 and in its characters of the village preacher and the 
 village schoolmaster. If it had not been for these the 
 poem would have been forgotten long ago, but there are 
 hardly any lines in all English literature more familiar 
 than those just referred to ; and outside of Shakespeare 
 and Pope there are no lines more often quoted. More- 
 over, the closing lines of the description of the village 
 preacher contain one of the finest similes to be found in 
 the whole range of English poetry.
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 85 
 
 FROM THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 
 
 Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, 
 
 Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 
 
 And parting summer's lingering blooms delay 'd: 
 
 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 5 
 
 Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
 
 How often have I loitered o'er thy green, 
 
 Where humble happiness endeared each scene! 
 
 How often have I paused on every charm, 
 
 The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, 10 
 
 The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
 
 The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill, 
 
 The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade. 
 
 For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 
 
 How often have I blessed the coming day, 15 
 
 When toil remitting lent its turn to play. 
 
 And all the village train, from labour free. 
 
 Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree; 
 
 While many a pastime circled in the shade. 
 
 The young contending as the old survey 'd ; 20 
 
 And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground. 
 
 And sleights of art and feats of strength went round ; 
 
 And still as each repeated pleasure tired, 
 
 Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir'd; 
 
 The dancing pair that simply sought renown, 25 
 
 By holding out to tire each other down ; 
 
 The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face, 
 
 mistrustless {Une 27) — unconscious.
 
 86 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 While secret laughter tittered round the place; 
 
 The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, 
 
 The matron's glance that would those looks reprove. 30 
 
 These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, 
 
 "With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please; 
 
 These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed. 
 
 These were thy charms — but all these charms are fled. 
 
 Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the la-woi, 35 
 
 Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; 
 Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
 And desolation saddens all thy green: 
 One only master grasps the v^^hole domain, 
 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain ; 40 
 
 No more thy glassy brook reflects the day. 
 But, choked with sedges, Avorks its weedy way; 
 Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
 The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest; 
 Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 45 
 
 And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; 
 Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 
 And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; 
 And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler 's hand, 
 Far, far away thy children leave the land, 50 
 
 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay : 
 
 hollow sounding bittern (44) — the bittern Is a wading bird which 
 makes a hollow booming noise. 
 
 men decay (r>'2) — decrease in number. It does not here mean 
 ithat men decay in character, altliouph this is the meaning universally 
 attached to It when it is quoted by public spealsera and writers.
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 87 
 
 Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; 
 
 A breath can make them, as a breath has made : 
 
 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 55 
 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 
 
 A time there was, ere England 's griefs began, 
 When every rood of ground maintained its man; 
 For him light labour spread her wholesome store, 
 Just gave what life required, but gave no more : 60 
 
 His best companions, innocence and health, 
 And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 
 
 But times are altered ; trade 's unfeeling train 
 Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain : 
 Along the lawn where scattered hamlets rose 65 
 
 Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose; 
 And every want to opulence allied, 
 And every pang that folly pays to pride. 
 Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 
 Those calm desires that asked but little room, 70 
 
 Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene. 
 Lived in each look, and brightened all the green ; 
 These, far departing, seek a kinder shore. 
 And rural mirth and manners are no more. 
 
 Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 75 
 And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; 
 There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
 
 A breath can make them (54) — Princes and lords are created by 
 the word of the King. 
 
 peasantry (55) — here means small land-holders.
 
 88 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year; 80 
 
 Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 
 Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place; 
 
 Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, 
 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; 
 
 Far other aims his heart had learned to prize 85 
 
 ]\Iore skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. 
 
 His house was known to all the vagrant train. 
 
 He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; 
 
 The long-remembered beggar was his guest. 
 
 Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; 90 
 
 The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
 
 Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allow 'd; 
 
 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
 
 Sat by his fire, and talked the night away; 
 
 "Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 95 
 
 Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. 
 
 Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
 
 And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
 
 Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
 
 His pity gave ere charity began. 100 
 
 Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
 And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; 
 But in his duty prompt at every call. 
 He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; 
 
 passing rich (80) — more than rich. The poet's father and brother 
 were hoth country pnr<;nns and oarh received £40 a year. The 
 description here is thought to be of his father.
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 89 
 
 And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 105 
 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
 
 Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
 And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed, 110 
 The reverend champion stood. At his control, 
 Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 
 Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
 And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 
 
 At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 115 
 
 His looks adorned the venerable place ; 
 Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
 And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 
 The service past, around the pious man. 
 With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 120 
 
 E 'en children followed with endearing wile. 
 And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. 
 His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed. 
 Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed ; 
 To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 125 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 130 
 
 Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
 With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
 
 90 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
 
 There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
 
 The village master taught his little school: 
 
 A man severe he was, and stern to view, 135 
 
 I knew him well, and every truant knew ; 
 
 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 
 The day's disasters in his morning face; 
 
 Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
 
 At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 140 
 
 Full well the busy whisper, circling round. 
 
 Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned: 
 
 Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, 
 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
 
 The village all declared how much he knew ; 145 
 
 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher, too ; 
 
 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
 
 And e'en the story ran that he could gauge. 
 
 In arguing, too, the parson o"s^Tied his skill. 
 
 And e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 150 
 
 While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 
 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, 
 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
 
 That one small head could carry all he knew. 
 
 But past is all his fame. The very spot 155 
 
 Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot, 
 
 luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree. 
 How ill exchanged are things like these for thee ! 
 How do thy potions, with insidious joy. 
 Diffuse their pleasure only to destroy! 160 
 
 the village master (134) — The original of this happy sketch waa 
 doubtless Thomas Byrne, Goldsmith's teacher at Lissoy.
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE 91 
 
 Kingdoms, by thee, to sickly greatness grown, 
 
 Boast of a florid vigour not their own : 
 
 At every draught more large and large they grow, 
 
 A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe ; 
 
 Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound, 165 
 
 Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. 
 
 E 'en now the devastation is begun, 
 And half the business of destruction done ; 
 E 'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
 I see the rural virtues leave the land. 170 
 
 Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail 
 That idly waiting flaps with every gale. 
 Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
 Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
 Contented toil, and hospitable care, 175 
 
 And kind connubial tenderness are there, 
 And piety with wishes placed above. 
 And steady loyalty, and faithful love. 
 
 — Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 Read Jloore's Utopia in connection with The Deserted Village. 
 Compare Chaucer's Parish Tricst, in the Prologue to the Canter- 
 hurt/ Tales, with Goldsmith's Village Preacher. 
 
 Note: A good example of land held in common may still be seen 
 in the suburbs of Oxford where a considerable tract of land has 
 been pastured in common by the "freemen" of Oxford since the days 
 of the Norman conquest.
 
 To Mary 
 
 03
 
 TO MART 95 
 
 TO MARY 
 
 Cowper's poem To Mary is one of the most familiar in 
 the language — one of the most familiar and one of the 
 most pathetic. The lines are so clear and so simple that 
 they do not need any "explaining," and yet the poem 
 has a story back of it which it is needful to know if one 
 is to understand and appreciate it. 
 
 William Cowper (1731-1800) came of the nobility. His 
 mother was descended from Henry III, and his great 
 uncle was Lord Chancellor for both Queen Anne and 
 George I. From nature he received more than a touch 
 of melancholy insanity as well as the gift of genius — an 
 insanity which put him twice into the mad-house and 
 made him thrice attempt suicide. An early love affair 
 with a beautiful cousin was frowned upon by her father, 
 and the poet never married. His nature was deeply 
 religious and he became the great poet of the religious 
 revival in England which we associate with the names 
 of Wesley and Whitefield. He wrote many of the great 
 hymns now sung in all the churches. His education was 
 good, but his means were very slender, and he was so shy 
 and sensitive and unworldly that he was wholly unfitted 
 to make his way in this world. He says of himself, with 
 heartbreaking pathos — 
 
 I was a stricken deer that left the herd 
 Long since. 
 
 When he was somewhat past thirty years of age he 
 became a member of the household of Rev. Morley
 
 96 TO MARY 
 
 Unwin, and all of the rest of his life is linked in a 
 remarkable way with that family. Mr. Unwin died two 
 years after Cowper took up his residence with them, and 
 thereafter Mrs. Unwin and Cowper resided together in 
 a purity of relationship as unquestioned as their love for 
 each other was deep. When she was forty-eight and 
 Cowper forty-one they planned to be married, but Cow- 
 per 's melancholy and despondency began to increase and 
 the marriage never took place. Goldwin Smith says of 
 this remarkable friendship: 
 
 "They became companions for life. Cowper says they were as 
 mother and son to each other; but Mrs. Unwin was only seven 
 years older than he. To label their connection is impossible, and 
 to try to do it would be a platitude. In his poems Cowper calls 
 Mrs. Unwin Mary ; she seems always to have called him Mr. 
 Cowper. It is evident that her son, a strictly virtuous and religions 
 man, never had the slightest misgiving about his mother's 
 position." 
 
 In her advancing years Mrs. Unwin had a slight stroke 
 of paralysis and her mind was affected. The worse she 
 became the brighter beamed CoA^^per's affection for her. 
 In 1793, while she was in this pitiable state, he wrote the 
 poem To Mary. Mrs. Unwin died three years later, aged 
 seventy-two. When Cowper looked upon her corpse he 
 flung himself across the room with a passionate cry of 
 grief, and from that time he never mentioned her name 
 or spoke of her again. In order that Cowper should 
 know nothing about the burial it was performed at night 
 by torch-light. He survived her three years and a half, 
 with now and then a gleam of reason and a faint revival 
 of his great faculties.
 
 TO MARY 97 
 
 TO MARY 
 
 The twentieth year is well-nigh past, 
 Since first our sky was overcast; 
 Ah, would that this might be the last ! 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Thy spirits have a fainter flow, 
 I see thee daily weaker grow, 
 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, 
 
 My Mary! 
 
 Thy needles, once a shining store. 
 For my sake restless heretofore, 
 Now rust disused, and shine no more, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil 
 The same kind office for me still, 
 Thy sight now seconds not thy will. 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 But well thou playedst the housewife 's part. 
 And all thy threads with magic art 
 Have wound themselves about my heart, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Thy indistinct expressions seem 
 Like language uttered in a dream ; 
 Yet me they charm, what'er the theme, 
 
 My Mary!
 
 98 TO MARY 
 
 Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, 
 Are still more lovely in my sight 
 Than golden beams of orient light, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 For, could I view nor them nor thee, 
 "What sight worth seeing could I see ? 
 The sun would rise in vain for me, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Partakers of thy sad decline. 
 
 Thy hands their little force resign. 
 
 Yet, gently prest, press gently mine, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Such feebleness of limbs thou provest. 
 That now at every step thou movest 
 Upheld by two, yet still thou lovest, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 And still to love, though prest with ill. 
 In wintry age to feel no chill. 
 With me is to be lovely still. 
 
 My Mary! 
 
 But ah ! by constant heed I know. 
 How oft the sadness that I show 
 ■Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe. 
 
 My Mary !
 
 TO MARY 99 
 
 And should my future lot be cast 
 With much resemblance of the past, 
 Thy worn-out heart will break at last, 
 
 My Mary ! 
 
 — William Cowper. 
 
 Note: The first line of the poem refers to an attack of Insanity 
 wliich Cowper had twenty years before — the first attacls; after he went 
 to live with the Unwins. 
 
 Tennyson could never trust himself to read this poem aloud. It ia 
 indeed "full of tears."
 
 Highland Mary 
 
 101
 
 HIGHLAND MARY 103 
 
 HIGHLAND MARY 
 
 In the imposing monument to Robert Burns at AUo- 
 way, near Ayr, in Scotland, there may be seen two small 
 volumes, one of the Old Testament and one of the 
 New. On them are written the names "Robert Burns" 
 and "Mary Campbell." They are also inscribed by the 
 hand of the poet with these two texts: "Ye shall not 
 swear by my name falsely ; I am the Lord ; ' ' and * ' Thou 
 shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the 
 Lord thine oaths." 
 
 These two volumes with this interesting inscription 
 were given by Burns to Mary Campbell one Sunday in 
 the month of May, 1786, on the Banks of the Ayr, and 
 Mary gave him a Bible in return. Standing on each 
 side of a brook, and holding a Bible between them, they 
 pledged themselves to each other while life should last. 
 They expected to marry and go to the West Indies, but 
 they never saw each other after that day. Mary, whose 
 home was on the Clyde, and who had been working in 
 Burns 's neighborhood as a children's maid, left at once 
 for her home to arrange affairs for their proposed 
 "change of life," as Burns says in a letter. In the 
 autumn "she was returning to Glasgow, where she had 
 obtained a place, when, stopping on the road at Greenock 
 to attend a sick brother, she caught fever from him and 
 died. She was buried in the west kirkyard of the town, 
 a spot where all who love the Scottish muse never fail 
 to drop their fervent tear." (John Stuart Blackie.)
 
 104 HIGHLAND MARY 
 
 A monument, erected by descendants of her family, 
 now marks her grave. 
 
 On the third anniversary of her death Burns ^vrote 
 To Mary in Heaven, the last three stanzas of which 
 describe the betrothal incident: 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget, 
 
 Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
 Where, by the winding Ayr, we met, 
 
 To live one day of parting love ! 
 Eternity can not efface 
 
 Those records dear of transports past, 
 Thy image at our last embrace. 
 
 Ah! little thought we 'twas our last! 
 
 Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore. 
 
 O'erhung with wild-woods, thickening green ; 
 The fragrant birch and hawthorue hoar, 
 
 Twined amorous round the raptur'd scene : 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 
 
 The birds sang love on every spray ; 
 Till too, too soon the glowing west 
 
 Proclaimed the speed of winged day. 
 
 Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes. 
 
 And fondly broods with miser-care ; 
 Time but th' impression stronger makes. 
 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 My Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
 See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? 
 
 Mary Campbell was but one of the many flames of 
 the warm-hearted Bobbie, but she was doubtless the 
 object of his deepest and sincerost affection. She was 
 the subject of some of his 'finest poems, including To 
 Mary in Heaven, My Highland Lassie, Sweet Afton, and 
 Highland Mary.
 
 HIGHLAND MARY 105 
 
 HIGHLAND MARY 
 
 Ye banks and braes and streams around 
 
 The castle o' Montgomery, 
 Green be your woods, and fair your flowers. 
 
 Your waters never drumlie! 
 There simmer first unfauld her robes, 
 
 And there the langest tarry ; 
 For there I took the last fareweel 
 
 0' my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 How sweetly bloom 'd the gay green birk, 
 
 How rich the hawthorn's blossom, 
 As underneath their fragrant shade 
 
 I clasp 'd her to my bosom ! 
 The golden hours on angel wings 
 
 Flew o'er me and my dearie; 
 For dear to me as light and life 
 
 Was my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 Wi' mony a vx)w and loek'd embrace 
 
 Our parting was fu ' tender ; 
 And pledging aft to meet again, 
 
 We tore oursels asunder ; 
 But, ! fell Death 's untimely frost, 
 
 That nipt my flower sae early! 
 Now green's the sod, and eauld's the clay, 
 
 That wraps my Highland Mary! 
 
 pale, pale now, those ruby lips, 
 
 I aft hae kiss 'd sae fondly ! 
 And closed for aye the sparkling glance
 
 lOG HIGHLAND MARY 
 
 That dwelt on ine sae kindly; 
 And moldering now in silent dust 
 
 That heart that lo 'ed me dearly ! 
 But still within my bosom's core 
 
 Shall live my Highland Mary. 
 
 — Robert Burns.
 
 Lines Composed a Few Miles 
 Above Tintern Abbey 
 
 107
 
 LINES COMPOSED ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY 109 
 
 LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE 
 TINTERN ABBEY 
 
 Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Ahhey (gen- 
 erally referred to as the "Tintern Abbey" poem) may 
 be called the spiritual autobiography of William Words- 
 worth. It gives in one hundred and sixty lines the 
 essence of all that any biographer has been able to tell 
 of his eighty years. To understand it fully much of 
 Wordsworth's other poetry, particularly the Prelude, 
 should be read, as well as some account of his life; for 
 Tintern Ahhey, though radiant as well as profound, is 
 an unknown language to the casual reader. One must be 
 an ardent and devoted lover of both nature and human- 
 ity, and he must have something of that poetic insight 
 which perceives "the light that never was, on sea or 
 land," else he cannot interpret it and make it his own. 
 Wordsworth spent nearly all of his long life among the 
 dalesmen of northern England, brooding with his power- 
 ful mind over the relations of nature and the spirit of 
 man, and the profoundest problems of life. The French 
 Revolution stirred his sympathies deeply, and he spent 
 a short time as a young man in Paris, but the hor- 
 rors of that terrible outburst, and particularly the Napo- 
 leonic days that followed, made him lose faith for the 
 time being in humanity and in his own ideals. He 
 returned to England in a most unhappy state of mind, 
 and led, as he says, a homeless life, utterly dejected. In 
 the summer of 1793, the next year after his return from 
 France, he made his first visit to the valley of the Wye
 
 110 LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES 
 
 in Monmouthshire, alone and on foot. The five years 
 intervening between this and his second visit were spent 
 chiefly in "plain living and high thinking" among the 
 quiet hills, with his sister Dorothy as his inseparable 
 companion and with the stimulating friendship of Cole- 
 ridge ; though he was sometimes ' ' 'mid the din of towns 
 and cities." The benignant influence of his sister, of 
 nature, and of Coleridge restored Wordsworth's spirit 
 and wrought in him the changes which he describes in 
 the "Tintern Abbey" poem. Nature was as a medicine 
 to his soul; and as for his sister's influence, he again 
 and again declares that she it was that kept him a poet 
 through those distressful years. In June, 1798, Words- 
 worth and Dorothy made that famous second visit to 
 the Wye and to Tintern Abbey, mentioned in his immor- 
 tal verse. In his Memoirs he says : 
 
 "We left Alfoxden on Monday mornin.a: the 26th of June (1798), 
 stayed with Coleridge till Monday following, then set forth on 
 foot towards Bristol. We were at Cottle's for a week, and thence 
 we went toward the banks of the Wye. We crossed the Severn 
 Ferry and walked ten miles further to Tintern Abbey, a very beau- 
 tiful ruin on the Wye. The next morning we walked along the 
 river through Monmouth to Goodrich Castle, there slept, and re- 
 turned the next day to Tintern. thence to Chepstow, and from 
 Chepstow back again in a boat to Tintern, where we slept, and 
 thence back in a small vessel to Bristol. 
 
 "The Wye is a stately and majestic river from its width and 
 depth, but never slow and sluggish ; you can always hear its mur- 
 mur. It travels through a woody country, now varied with cot- 
 tages and green meadows, and now with huge and fantastic rocks." 
 
 The Wye is "stately and majestic" only in compari- 
 son with other English streams ; it is a small stream com- 
 pared with American and Continental rivers. The Wye 
 country, however, is of surpassing beauty. Hill and vale 
 and stream unite to make a picture worthy of all the
 
 ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY 111 
 
 praise that poets and painters have showered upon it. 
 In the midst of this charming setting is Tintern Abbey, 
 built for the Cistercian monks early in the 12th century, 
 and now in picturesque but stately ruins. A view of the 
 Abbey by moonlight, with the river at its base and the 
 hills towering all about it, is an experience not to be 
 forgotten. These haunts of ancient peace are trans- 
 formed by the moon and the night into faery lands 
 forlorn. 
 
 Near Goodrich Castle is where Wordsworth met the 
 "little cottage girl" of his We Are Seven poem, which 
 is familiar to all school children. 
 
 Concerning the manner of the composition of the Tin- 
 tern Abbey poem, Wordsworth says: 
 
 "No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleas- 
 ant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tin- 
 tern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was enter- 
 ing Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days with 
 my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it 
 written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost imme- 
 diately after in the little volume, Lyrical Ballads, of which so 
 much has been said in these notes." 
 
 Was there ever before or since such high converse? 
 Was there ever such an improvization ? Did any other 
 traveller ever speak such radiant words in such noble 
 form as he trudged across the hills ? I know of nothing 
 more interesting or amazing in the history of poetry 
 than this unaltered impromptu of Wordsworth 's, spoken 
 to his sister as the two strolled together in the valley of 
 the Severn and the Wye. "Not a line of it was altered, 
 and not any part of it was WTitten down" until three 
 or four days later. The real significance of all this lies
 
 112 LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES 
 
 in the fact that it was possible only because it was the 
 expression of the chief mood and meaning of his whole 
 life, the blossoming of accumulated and long-maturing 
 meditation, and mental suffering, and deep joy of resto- 
 ration. It was perhaps his greatest utterance as a poetic 
 teacher and interpreter of nature and of human lifo. 
 
 The dominant conception of the poem is the relation 
 of nature to man, and the relation of the spirit of the 
 universe to both. In the first twenty-two lines there is a 
 description of the scenery true to its present aspect of 
 winding and untrimmed hedgerows, orchard-tufts, plots 
 of cottage-ground, and the river with its soft inland 
 murmur. 
 
 Lines 23 to 50 tell how the remembrance of these 
 beautiful scenes has been constantly with him, produc- 
 ing sensations sweet, felt in the blood and felt along 
 the heart. The pleasure thus given had had no slight 
 influence on the acts of daily life, his little nameless 
 unremembered acts of kindness and of love. To these 
 recollections he owed also a higher and more blessed 
 mood — a mood in Avhich he became so completely in 
 harmony with nature, and so lost himself, that he was 
 more of a spirit than a corporeal being, and was able 
 to see into the life of things. 
 
 The next fifteen lines (50 to 65) contain another 
 tribute, in more general terms, to the healing power of 
 nature as represented in the sylvan "Wye, tell how his 
 spirit had turned to it from the fretful stir and fever 
 of the world, and express the realization (lines 63-65) 
 that his mind is gathering, on this second visit, life and 
 food for future years, just as it had done on his first
 
 ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY 113 
 
 visit. It was one of the most marked characteristics of 
 "Wordsworth's genius that he treasured up his pleasant 
 experiences and emotions, let them mellow and ripen in 
 his mind, and turned them into poetry years afterward. 
 His poetry is full of such instances; and in the lines on 
 T/ie Daffodils he says : 
 
 For oft when on my couch I lie, 
 
 In vacant or in pensive mood, 
 They flash upon that inward eye 
 
 Which is the bliss of solitude, 
 And then my heart with pleasure fills 
 
 And dances with the daffodils. 
 
 The next forty-five lines (65-110) contain the heart of 
 the poem — the revelation of the four stages of his de- 
 velopment in his attitude towards nature, and man, and 
 the spirit of the universe — the four periods which Ed- 
 ward Dowden calls the period of the blood, the period of 
 the senses, the period of the imagination, and the period 
 of the soul. 
 
 The first stage is merely referred to in lines 73-74 — 
 the stage of his boyish days when he took such delight 
 in nature as any healthy young animal might take. 
 
 The second stage (lines 76-83 especially) was that in 
 which nature was an appetite, a feeling and a love in 
 itself, without any association with man and without any 
 coloring supplied by man. This second stage, this pas- 
 sion for nature as nature, lasted until, as Walter Ra- 
 leigh puts it, the fever of political thought and passion 
 drove it out. Then came his saddening experiences with 
 the seething humanity of the French Revolution. 
 
 "When this crisis was past, the love of nature returned 
 to him, but this time associated with a love of man and
 
 114 LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES 
 
 with a deep sense of the pathos of things. This third 
 stage is described in lines 88-93. 
 
 But another and a still deeper change has occurred 
 {lines 93-102) ; he has learned to see and to feel the 
 spirit of God in all created things, in the light of setting 
 suns and the round ocean and the living air as well as 
 in the mind of man. This ''something" which he here 
 calls a "motion and a spirit" he calls "an active Prin- 
 ciple, " " the Soul of all the worlds, ' ' and ' ' the sentiment 
 of Being," in other passages. It is a pantheistic con- 
 ception of Deity: God in everything, and the spirit of 
 everything everywhere. In many other poems of his the 
 same idea is expressed, and it was a part of his life 
 as well as his creed ; but he held it not inconsistent with 
 the Christian idea of Deity. 
 
 From line 110 on the poem is addressed to his sister, 
 in whose unmixed love of nature he recognizes himself 
 as he was in his second stage. lie tells her to let nature 
 have its way with her, to give herself up to its ministries 
 and its rewards; and then when these ecstasies shall be 
 matured into a sober pleasure, when her mind shall be 
 a mansion for all lovely forms and her memory a dwell- 
 ing-place for all sweet sounds and harmonies, she will 
 not forget these, his exhortations, and this, his heart- 
 spoken poem, across the hills of Wye — for nature never 
 did betray the heart that loved her. 
 
 ]\Iiss Wordsworth was in complete sympathy with her 
 brother in letting the moon shine on her in her solitary 
 walks and in letting the misty mountain wands be free 
 to blow against her. The following extract from her 
 Journal illustrates not only her love of nature, but her
 
 ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY 115 
 
 devotion to her brother ; it is dated at Grasmere, Novem- 
 ber 14, 1800 : 
 
 "A fine mild night. I walked with William over the Raise. It 
 was starlight. I parted with him very sad, unwilling not to go on. 
 The hills, and the stars, and the white waters, with their ever- 
 varying yet ceaseless sound, were very impressive." 
 
 Sadly enough, her passion for nature led her into 
 mountain rambles which were beyond her strength, and 
 in 1832 she had a serious illness which left her mind 
 clouded for the remainder of her life. 
 
 ANALYSIS 
 
 I. Introduction, lines 1-22. 
 II. Although absent, these scenes have not been forgotten by the 
 poet (22-57). 
 
 1. They have been with him in solitude (25). 
 
 2. And amid the noise of cities (26). 
 
 3. He has felt them in his emotion (28). 
 
 4. And in his intellect (29). 
 
 5. And they have given him, also, unremembered pleasure 
 
 (31). 
 
 (1) They have influenced him like a forgotten kind 
 act (31-35). 
 
 (2) And their recollection has lifted him into the imagi- 
 native mood in which his own being was forgotten 
 (35-49) (The "period of the imagination"). 
 
 6. Both at night and in joyless daylight his spirit has 
 
 returned to these scenes (50-57). 
 III. His return calls up old thoughts and new (57). 
 
 1. This present experience will furnish food for reflection 
 
 in future years. 
 
 2. On his first visit nature was to him an appetite (66-83) 
 
 (The "period of the senses"). 
 
 3. The animal pleasure in nature having before that passed 
 
 away (73-74) (The "period of the blood"). 
 
 4. He has since learned to look upon nature with a feeling 
 
 chastened by humanity and with the sense of a spiritual 
 Presence (85-103) (The "period of the soul").
 
 IIG LINES COMPOSED ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY 
 
 5. And so he is still nonetheless n lover of nature though 
 his feelings have changed (103-111). 
 IV. Tribute to his sister Dorothy (111-159). 
 
 1. Her joy in nature is such as his was formerly (110-119). 
 
 2. He prays that she may continue in that joy (119-121). 
 
 3. For nature can make us feel that everything is full of 
 
 blessings (121-134). 
 
 4. Her wild joy in nature will by and by become a sober 
 
 pleasure like his (134-145). 
 
 5. Then she will remember his exhortation, their visit to- 
 
 gether here, and that he worshiped nature with a holier 
 love tian in his youth, both for its sake and for hers.
 
 Lines 
 
 117
 
 LINES 119 
 
 LINES 
 
 Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the 
 banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798. 
 
 Five years have past ; five summers, with the length 
 
 Of five long winters ! and again I hear 
 
 These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs 
 
 With a soft inland murmur. Once again 
 
 Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 
 
 That on a wild secluded scene impress 
 
 Thoughts of more deep seclusion ; and connect 
 
 The landscape with the quiet of the sky. 
 
 The day is come when I again repose 
 
 Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10 
 
 These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, 
 
 Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, 
 
 Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 
 
 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 
 
 These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 15 
 
 Of sportive wood run wild : these pastoral farms, 
 
 Green to the very door ; and wreaths of smoke 
 
 Sent up, in silence, from among the trees ! 
 
 inland murmur (line 4) — where the Wye joins the Severn a few 
 miles below Tintern it rushes over a rocky channel, but here It la 
 quiet and calm. Tennyson In In Memoriam says : — 
 There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
 The salt sea-water passes by, 
 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
 And makes a silence in the hills. 
 Wordsworth himself in a note calls attention to the fact that a 
 few miles above Tintern the Wye is not affected by the tides. 
 
 connect the landscape u-i1h the sky (8) — a gradation of colors 
 from the landscape to the sky.
 
 120 LINES 
 
 With some uncertain notice, as might seem 
 
 Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 20 
 
 Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire 
 
 The Hermit sits alone. 
 
 These beauteous forms, 
 Through a long absence, have not been to me 
 As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 
 But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 25 
 
 Of toAMis and cities, I have owed to them 
 In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 
 Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart ; 
 And passing even into my purer mind, 
 With tranquil restoration : — feelings, too, 30 
 
 Of unremembered pleasure ; such, perhaps, 
 As have no slight or trivial influence 
 On that best portion of a good man's life, 
 His little, nameless, unremembered, acts 
 Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 35 
 
 To them I may have oAved another gift, 
 Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood. 
 In "which the burthen of the mystery, 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world, 40 
 
 Is lightened : — that serene and blessed mood. 
 In which the affections gently lead us on, — 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 
 And even the motion of our human blood 
 
 purer mind (29) — clearer; furnishing not only food for sensa- 
 tion and feeling but for quiet tliougtit and contemplation. 
 
 fcrlinf/s. too, etc. (30-35) — such influences affect one's little acts 
 of daily life.
 
 LINES 121 
 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 45 
 
 In body, and become a living soul : 
 
 While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 
 We see into the life of things. 
 
 If this 
 Be but a vain belief, yet, oh ! how oft — 50 
 
 In darkness and amid the many shapes 
 Of joyless daylight ; when the fretful stir 
 Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 
 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — 
 How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 55 
 
 O sylvan Wye ! thou wandered thro ' the woods, 
 How often has my spirit turned to thee ! 
 
 And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 
 With many recognitions dim and faint, 
 And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 60 
 
 The picture of the mind revives again : 
 While here I stand, not only with the sense 
 Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 
 That in this moment there is life and food 
 For future years. And so I dare to hope, 65 
 
 Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 
 
 ice are laid asleep in body . . . see into the life of things 
 (45-49) — In various other poems, notably the Prelude and the Ex- 
 cursion, he speaks of this power of the spirit of man to become one 
 with, to fuse itself with, the spirit of nature. "Freed from the 
 bonds of sense, the soul rises to communion with the spirit that 
 works harmoniously in nature, and with clear vision and intense joy 
 beholds the Inner life of things." It is worth pointing out that In the 
 "inner life of things" Wordsworth saw always joy and love — a joy 
 chastened and subdued, but always joy and love.
 
 122 LINES 
 
 I came among these hills ; when like a roe 
 
 I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 
 
 Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 
 
 Wherever nature led : more like a man 70 
 
 Flying from something that he dreads, than one 
 
 "Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then 
 
 ( The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, 
 
 And their glad animal movements all gone by) 
 
 To me was all in all, — I cannot paint 75 
 
 What then I was. The sounding cataract 
 
 Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, 
 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 
 Their colours and their forms, were then to me 
 
 An appetite ; a feeling and a love, 80 
 
 That had no need of a remoter charm. 
 
 By thought supplied, nor any interest 
 
 Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past, 
 
 And all its aching joys are now no more. 
 
 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 85 
 
 Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur ; other gifts 
 
 Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, 
 
 Abundant recompense. For I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 
 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 90 
 
 The still, sad music of humanity, 
 
 Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
 
 sad music of humanity (91) — in the Ode on Immortality he says : — 
 The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
 Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
 That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.
 
 LINES 123 
 
 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 95 
 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 100 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods, 
 
 And mountains ; and of all that w^e behold 
 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 105 
 
 Of eye, and ear — both what they half create, 
 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 
 
 In nature and the language of the sense, 
 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 110 
 
 Of all my moral being. 
 
 Nor perchance, 
 If I were not thus taught, should I the more 
 Suffer my genial spirit to decay : 
 For thou art with me here upon the banks 
 
 trhat they half create (lOfl) — what is lent to natural objects by 
 the imagination of the beholder, — 
 
 The light that never was, on sea or land, 
 The consecration and the poet's dream.
 
 124 LINES 
 
 Of this fair river ; thou my dearest Friend, 115 
 
 My dear, dear Friend ; and in thy voice I catch 
 
 The language of my former heart, and read 
 
 My former pleasures in the shooting lights 
 
 Of thy wild eyes. Oh ! yet a little while 
 
 IMay I behold in thee what I was once, 120 
 
 My dear, dear Sister ! and this prayer I make 
 
 Knowing that Nature never did betray 
 
 The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege, 
 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 
 From joy to joy: for she can so inform 125 
 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 
 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
 
 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men. 
 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 130 
 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
 
 Shall e 'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 
 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
 
 Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 
 
 my dearest Friend (115) — His sister Dorothy. Concerning her In- 
 fluence In restoring him to a happier state of mincl, be says in the 
 Prelude : 
 
 Then It was — 
 
 Thanks to the bountcoas Giver of all good — 
 
 That the bolovCd Sister in whose sight 
 
 Those days were passed, now speaking In a voice 
 
 Of sudden admonition — like a brook 
 
 That did but cross a lonely road, and now 
 
 Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn, 
 
 Companion never lost through many a league — • 
 
 Maintained for me a saving intercourse. 
 
 She in the midst of all, preserved me still 
 
 A Poet.
 
 LINES 125 
 
 Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; . 135 
 
 And let the misty mountain-winds be free 
 
 To blow against thee : and, in after years, 
 
 When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 
 
 Into a sober pleasure ; when thy mind 
 
 Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 140 
 
 Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 
 
 For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh ! then 
 
 If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 
 
 Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 
 
 Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 145 
 
 And these my exhortations ! Nor, perchance — 
 
 If I should be where I no more can hear 
 
 Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 
 
 Of past existence — wilt thou then forget 
 
 That on the banks of this delightful stream 150 
 
 We stood together : and that I, so long 
 
 A worshipper of Nature, hither came 
 
 Unwearied in that service : rather say 
 
 With warmer love — oh ! with far deeper zeal 
 
 Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, 155 
 
 That after many wanderings, many years 
 
 Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 
 
 And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 
 
 More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake ! 
 
 — William Wordsworth. 
 
 Wordsworth's great Ode on Immortalify should be read carefully 
 in connection with the study of the "Tintern Abbey" poem.
 
 Ode on Intimations of Immortality 
 
 from Recollections of Early 
 
 Childhood 
 
 127
 
 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 129 
 
 ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD 
 
 Principal Shairp says that Wordsworth's Ode ''marks 
 the highest limit which the tide of poetic inspiration has 
 reached in England" since the days of Milton; Lord 
 Houghton (R. M. Milnes) called it "the greatest poem 
 in the English language," and Emerson said ''The Ode 
 on Immortality is the high-water mark which the intel- 
 lect has reached in this age. ' ' 
 
 Wordsworth contributes materially to the interpreta- 
 tion of the poem in his own prose account of his child- 
 hood feelings and experiences. He says: 
 
 "This was composed during my residence at Town-End, Gras- 
 mere. Two years at least passed between the writing of the first 
 four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and com- 
 petent 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 : 
 
 'A simple child 
 That lightly draws its breath. 
 And feels its life in every limb, 
 What should it know of death?' 
 
 "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 be- 
 come 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
 
 130 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself 
 from this abyss of idealism to the 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 splendour, which invests objects of sight in childhood, every 
 one, I believe, if he would 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." 
 
 John Ruskin, in discussing the relation of nature to 
 art, says {Modern Painters, part 3, Chapter 5) : 
 
 "I suppose there are few, among those who love nature otherwise 
 than by profession and at second-hand, who look not back to their 
 youngest and least-learned days as those of the most intense, super- 
 stitious, insatiable, and beatific perception of her splendours. And 
 the bitter decline of this glorious feeling, though many note it not, 
 partly owing to the cares and weight of manhood, which leave 
 them not the time nor the liberty to look for their lost treasure, 
 and partly to the human and divine affections which are appointed 
 to take its place, yet has formed the subject not indeed of lamenta- 
 tion, but of holy thankfulness for the witness it bears to the im- 
 mortal origin and end of our nature to one whose authority is al- 
 most without appeal in all questions relating to the influence of 
 external things upon the pure human soul. . . . And if it were 
 possible for us to recollect all the unaccountable and happy in- 
 stincts of the careless time, and to reason upon them with the 
 maturer judgment, we might arrive at more rapid and right results 
 than either the philosophy or the sophisticated practice of art have 
 yet attained." 
 
 The main idea of the Ode may be found in a little 
 poem called The Eetreat, by William Vaughan, a "Pla- 
 tonic ' ' poet of the seventeenth century : 
 
 Happy tKose early days, when I 
 Shined in my Angel-infancy ! 
 Before I understood this place 
 Appointed for my second race,
 
 FROM RECOTJ.ECTIONS 131 
 
 Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
 But a white celestial thought; 
 When yet I had not walk'd above 
 A mile or two from my first love. 
 And looking back, at that short space 
 Could see a glimpse of his bright face ; 
 When on some gilded cloud or flower 
 My gazing soul would dwell an hour, 
 And in those weaker glories spy, 
 Some shadows of eternity ; 
 Before I taught my tongue to wound 
 My conscience with a sinful sound, 
 Or had the black art to dispense 
 A several sin to every sense, 
 But felt through all this fleshly dress 
 Bright shoots of everlastingness. 
 
 O how I long to travel back. 
 And tread again that ancient track ! 
 That I might once more reach that plain 
 Where first I left my glorious train ; 
 From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees 
 That shady City of Palm trees : 
 But ah ! my soul with too much stay 
 Is drunk, and staggers in the way : — 
 Some men a forward motion love, 
 But I by backward steps would move; 
 And when this dust falls to the urn, 
 In that state I came, return. 
 
 The theme of "Wordsworth's Ode is, that with the 
 passing of childhood many of the soul's possessions 
 necessarily pass away, but its essential nature does not 
 pass; the cliaracter of these early possessions, and their 
 power to remain, though changed, indicate a heavenly 
 pre-existence and a future immortality. Notice that he 
 calls them not arguments but "intimations." 
 
 There are three stages in the development of the 
 theme: (1) The attitude of the child towards nature. 
 (2) The losses of these feelings that older life experi-
 
 132 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 ences. (3) The spiritual possessions that remain per- 
 manently — "the strength in what remains behind." 
 
 Professsor W. D. IMacClintock offers the following 
 analysis : 
 
 1. A beauty and glory which once rested upon the earth for the 
 
 child has passed away for the man. St. I-IV. 
 
 (a) This glory has passed away from the common sights of 
 nature and from the rare. St. I-II. 
 
 (b) What a pity that we should thus complain while na- 
 ture about is so joyous ! Attempt made to rejoice. 
 But some aspect of nature brings back the mood of 
 regret. St. III-IV. 
 
 2. The coming and the going of this glory accounted for. St. V-VIII. 
 
 (a) It came with the child from his pre-existing state. 
 St. V. 
 
 (b) It passes away. 
 
 (1) Because nature is so attractive to the child. 
 St. VI. 
 
 (2) Because the child takes on the yoke of life as a 
 result of his instinct for imitation. St. VII. 
 
 An exclamation of pity that the child must grow older 
 and lose his early knowledge and feeling. St. VIII. 
 
 (3) Though much is gone, the soul's essential instincts 
 remain, indicating a native and indestructible spirit- 
 ual nature. St. IX. 
 
 (4) After this conclusion, nature is viewed again 
 calmlv and with more joy than when the poet was 
 a child. St. X-XI. 
 
 Stanza VII is an epitome of man's life on earth. The 
 "six years darling" especially in the mind of Words- 
 worth was Hartly Coleridge. "Humorous st^ge" {line 
 103) is quoted from Shakespeare's A<i You Like It. It 
 means the stage on which are exhibited the moods, 
 whims, caprices and manners of mankind. 
 
 Stanza VIII is a stumbling-block to many students. 
 They cannot comprehend how a mere child can be the 
 "best philosopher" and "mighty prophet." Stopford
 
 FROM RECOLLECTIONS 133 
 
 Brooke, in his Theology in the English Poets, helps to 
 make the meaning clear. He says: 
 
 "We can only catch the main idea among expressions of the 
 child as the best philosopher, the eye among the blind . . . the 
 mighty prophet, the seer blest — expressions which taken separately 
 have scarcely any recognizable meaning. By taking them all to- 
 gether, 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-existeut life and glory out of which he has 
 come." 
 
 Stanza 9 has some difficult lines, particularly lines 
 141-147. Wordsworth himself gave an interpretation of 
 them to Professor Price of Oxford (see Professor Price's 
 letter in William Knight's edition of Wordsworth, The 
 Maemillan Company, Vol. VIII, p. 201). When Price 
 asked him what were those "fallings from us, vanish- 
 ings," etc., for which above all other things he gave 
 thanks, Wordsworth replied : ' There was a time in my 
 life when I had to push against something that resisted, 
 to be sure that there was anything outside of me. I 
 was sure of my own mind; everything else fell away, 
 and vanished into thought." Moreover, Wordsworth 
 thought that such experiences were common to childhood. 
 
 Stanza 11 should be studied in connection with lines 
 88-102 in Tintern Ahhey, in which he says, 
 
 For I have learned 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity, etc.
 
 134 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 He interprets nature through the experiences of life 
 and the heart of man. This is Wordsworth's supreme 
 gift to the world. 
 
 ODE 
 
 INTIMATIONS OP IMMORTALITY PROM RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 EARLY CHILDHOOD 
 
 There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream 
 The earth; and every common sight, 
 To me did seem 
 Apparelled in celestial light, 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
 It is not now as it hath been of yore ; 
 Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
 By night or day, 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 
 
 The rainbow comes and goes, 10 
 
 And lovely is the rose ; 
 The Moon doth with delight 
 Look round her when the heavens are bare; 
 Waters on a starry night 
 Are beautiful and fair; 15 
 
 The sunshine is a glorious birth : 
 But yet I know, where'er I go, 
 That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
 
 FROM RECOLLECTIONS 135 
 
 Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 
 
 And while the young lamhs bound 20 
 
 As to the tabor's sound, 
 To me alone there came a thought of grief ; 
 A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 
 
 And I again am strong : 
 TJie cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ; 25 
 No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; 
 I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng. 
 The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 
 And all the earth is gay; 
 
 Land and sea 30 
 
 Give themselves up to jollity, 
 
 And with the heart of May 
 Doth every Beast keep holiday ; — 
 Thou Child of Joy, 
 Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, 35 
 
 Thou happy Shepherd-Boy ! 
 
 4 
 
 Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call 
 
 Ye to each other make ; I see 
 The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; 
 
 My heart is at your festival, 40 
 
 My head hath its coronal. 
 The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all. 
 
 O evil day ; if I were sullen 
 
 While Earth herself is adorning. 
 
 fields of sleep {line 28) — probably early morning when the fields 
 were sleeping.
 
 136 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 This sweet May-morning, 45 
 
 And the Children are culling 
 On every side, 
 
 In a thousand valleys far and wide, 
 
 Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, 
 And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm: — 50 
 
 I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! 
 
 — But there's a Tree, of many, one, 
 A single Field which I have looked upon. 
 Both of them speak of something that is gone : 
 
 The Pansy at my feet 55 
 
 Doth the same tale repeat : 
 "Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 
 Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 
 The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 60 
 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And coraeth from afar. 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 65 
 
 From God, Who is our home : 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing boy, 
 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 70 
 
 He sees it in his joy ! 
 
 prison house (C8) — the world ; this life.
 
 FROM RECOTXECTIONS 137 
 
 The youth, who daily farther from the east 
 Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
 And b}^ the vision splendid 
 Is on his way attended ; 75 
 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 
 Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 
 
 Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 
 
 And even with something of a mother's mind, 80 
 
 And no unworthy aim, 
 
 The homely nurse doth all she can 
 To make her foster-child, her inmate man, 
 
 Forget the glories ,he hath known. 
 And that imperial palace whence he came. 85 
 
 Behold the child among his new-born blisses, 
 
 A six years' darling of a pigmy size ! 
 
 See where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
 
 Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses. 
 
 With light upon him from his father's eyes! 90 
 
 See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 
 
 Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
 
 Shaped by himself with newly-learned art : 
 
 A wedding or a festival, 
 
 A mourning or a funeral; 95 
 
 farther from the east (72) — farther from infancy. 
 Imperial palace (85) — his celestial home.
 
 138 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 And this hath now his heart, 
 
 And unto this he frames his song ; 
 Then i\\dll he fit his tongue 
 To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; 
 
 But it will not be long 100 
 
 Ere this be thrown aside, 
 
 And with new joy and pride 
 The little Actor cons another part; 
 Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" 
 With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 105 
 
 That Life brings with her in her equipage ; 
 
 As if his whole vocation. 
 
 Were endless imitation. 
 
 8 
 
 Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 
 
 Thy Soul's immensity; 110 
 
 Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 
 Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind. 
 That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
 Haunted forever by the eternal mind, — 
 
 Mighty Prophet ; Seer blest ! 115 
 
 On whom those truths do rest, 
 Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
 In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; 
 Thou, over whom thy Immortality 
 
 Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, 120 
 
 A Presence which is not to be put by ; 
 Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
 
 FROM RECOLLECTIONS 139 
 
 Of heaven-born freedom on thy being 's height, 
 
 Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
 
 The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 125 
 
 Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
 
 Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, 
 
 And custom lie upon thee with a weight. 
 
 Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! 
 
 9 
 
 joy ! that in our embers 130 
 
 Is something that doth live, 
 
 That nature yet remembers 
 
 What was so fugitive ! 
 The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
 Perpetual benediction : not indeed 135 
 
 For that which is most worthy to be blest — 
 Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
 Of childhood, whether busy or at rest. 
 With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast ; — 
 
 Not for these I raise 140 
 
 The song of thanks and praise ; 
 
 But for those obstinate questionings 
 
 Of sense and outward things ; 
 
 Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 145 
 
 Moving about in worlds not realised ; 
 High instincts before which our mortal nature 
 
 heaven-horn freedom on thy icing's heifflit (123) — "Childhood Is, as 
 it were, the mountain-top, the natural type of freedom and nearest 
 heaven, from which men descend by easy steps into the vale of man- 
 hood." 
 
 emhers (130) — old age.
 
 140 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised ; 
 But for those first affections, 
 Those shadowy recollections, 150 
 
 Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
 Are yet a master-light of all our seeing. 
 
 Uphold us, cherish, and haye power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments in the being 155 
 
 Of the Eternal Silence ; truths that wake. 
 
 To perish never, 
 Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 
 
 Nor man nor boy, 
 Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 160 
 
 Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 
 
 Hence, in a season of calm weather, 
 Though inland far we be. 
 Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
 
 Which brought us hither; 165 
 
 Can in a moment travel thither, 
 And see the children sport upon the shore, 
 And hear the mighty w^aters rolling evermore. 
 
 10 
 Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! 
 
 And let the j'oung lambs bound 170 
 
 As to the tabor 's sound ! 
 We in thought will j<)in your throng. 
 
 ie the;/ ichat they may (151) — to him thoy were "Intimations of 
 immortality." 
 
 man nor hoy (139) — manhood and boyhood. 
 
 calm weather (1G2) — qniot moods. 
 
 that immortal sea (164) — the ocean of eternity.
 
 FROM RECOLLECTIONS 141 
 
 Ye that pipe and ye that play, 
 
 Ye that through your hearts to-day 
 
 Feel the gladness of the May ! 175 
 
 What though the radiance which was once so bright 
 
 Be now forever taken from my sight, 
 
 Though nothing can bring back the hour 
 
 Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; 
 
 "We will grieve not, rather find 180 
 
 Strength in what remains behind ; 
 
 In the primal sympathy 
 
 Which having been must ever be ; 
 
 In the soothing thoughts that spring 
 
 Out of human suffering; 185 
 
 In the faith that looks through death, 
 
 In years that bring the philosophic mind. 
 
 11 
 
 And ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 
 
 Forebode not any severing of our loves ! 
 
 Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; 190 
 
 I only have relinquished one delight 
 
 To live beneath your more habitual sway. 
 
 I love the Brooks which do\\Ti their channels fret, 
 
 Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; 
 
 The innocent brightness of a new-born Day 195 
 
 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;
 
 142 ODE ON INTIMATIONS 
 
 Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 200 
 Thanks to the human heart by Avhich 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. 
 
 •^William Wordsworth. 
 
 Another race, etc. (200) — the race li.ns been run and the victory 
 won.
 
 Rome 
 
 143
 
 ROME 145 
 
 ROME 
 (From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV, Stanzas 78-82.) 
 
 Modern Rome stands thirty feet above the level of 
 Ancient Rome, and when Lord Byron was there in 1817 
 no excavations had been made. Since that time, espe- 
 cially during the past twenty-five years, many of the 
 ruins of its ancient splendors have been brought to light. 
 Modern research has been able to do what Byron said 
 could not be done: "trace the void . . . and say 
 'here was, or here is.' " Rome is no longer, thanks to 
 these scientific explorations, "as the desert, where we 
 steer stumbling o'er recollections." However, an im- 
 mense amount of work still remains to be done. 
 
 Rome was founded 753 B. C, and increased until, as 
 everybody knows, it became the capital of the world. 
 Destructive fires occurred at various times, notably in 
 64 A. D., during the reign of Nero. Constantine, in 
 330 A. D., embellished Constantinople with many monu- 
 ments and works of art from Rome. Between A. D. 408 
 and 445 the city was ravished by the Goths, the Vandals, 
 and the Germans, and in 476 the Roman Empire was 
 broken up. From the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries 
 many buildings in Rome were used as fortresses by the 
 nobles in their continual war upon one another. During 
 what we call the Dark Ages many magnificent monu- 
 ments and works of art were deliberately destroyed by 
 the Romans themselves in order to make lime for their 
 new palaces and houses. The splendid and beautiful old 
 marble structures being pagan, the Christians of Rome
 
 146 ROME 
 
 thouglit they were doing Grod-serviee when they melted 
 them down into lime. Rome was destroyed quite as 
 mueh by vandals from within as by vandals from with- 
 out. But what was once the mistress of the world in 
 military power is still the mistress of the world in 
 human interest. 
 
 The transfiguring power of the poetic imagination is 
 shown in the stanzas before us. Byron, standing in the 
 midst of modern Rome with its "strange mixture," as 
 Dr. Russell Forbes says, "of narrow streets, open squares, 
 churches, fountains, ruins, new palaces, and dirt," saw, 
 not these things, but the Niobe of Nations, childless and 
 crownless in her voiceless woe. According to an old 
 myth, Niobe had fourteen children, seven sons and seven 
 daughters, of whom she was very proud. She boasted 
 of them to Leto, who had only two children, and Leto, 
 in revenge, persuaded the gods to destroy Niobe 's chil- 
 dren. Niobe is always regarded as the personification 
 of grief. Rome w^as once the mother of kingdoms, and 
 Byron's application of the old myth is very appropriate. 
 The myth goes on to say that Niobe was turned into a 
 stone in the figure of a woman sitting in the attitude of 
 deep grief; hence Byron's phrase, "her voiceless woe." 
 * ' An empty urn in her withered hand " is an allegorical 
 representation of the empty tombs and sepulchres to be 
 found everywhere in and about Rome. In the same 
 stanza he says : 
 
 "The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; 
 The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
 Of their heroic dwellers."
 
 ROME 147 
 
 The family tomb of the Seipios was discovered near 
 the Appian Way a short distance out of Rome in 1780. 
 The bones of many distinguished members of the family, 
 with their inscriptions, were found. The bones were 
 carried to Padua, and the original inscriptions removed 
 to the Vatican. Visitors to Rome to-day are shown many 
 such empty tombs, but only their brick or rough-stone 
 walls remain ; the beautiful marble with which they were 
 all veneered was turned into lime or used in building 
 churches long ago. 
 
 ROME 
 
 O Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
 
 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
 Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
 
 In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
 "What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 5 
 
 The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
 O 'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye ! 
 
 Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
 A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 
 
 The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 10 
 
 Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
 
 An empty urn within her withered hands. 
 Whose holy dust was scattered long ago; 
 
 The Seipios' tomb contains no ashes now; 
 
 The very sepulchres lie tenantless 15 
 
 Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow,
 
 148 ROME 
 
 Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? 
 Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 
 
 The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 
 Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride; 20 
 
 She saw her glories star by star expire, 
 And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 
 
 "Where the ear climbed the Capitol ; far and wide 
 Temple and toAver went down, nor left a site : 
 
 Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, 25 
 
 O 'er the dim fragments east a lunar light, 
 And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night? 
 
 The double night of ages, and of her, 
 
 Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 
 All round us : we but feel our way to err : 30 
 
 The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map. 
 And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
 
 But Rome is as the desert, where we steer 
 Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap 
 
 Our hands, and cry "Eureka!" it is clear — 35 
 
 When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 
 
 Through a marble icildcrnesn (line 17) — the great buildings, monu- 
 ments, and statues of Ancient Rome were chiefly of marble. 
 
 up the steep, etc. (22-23) — the carriage-road by which the chariot 
 ("car") of the victorious general ascended the Capltoline Hill in 
 the triumphal processions, in which "barbarian monarchs" were 
 often led. — H. F. Tozer. 
 
 trace the void (25) — explore the waste places. 
 
 lunar (26) — pale or feeble. 
 
 Eureka (35) — "I have found It." 
 
 Kome false mirage o] ruin (36) — ruins suggesting deceptive his- 
 torical association.
 
 ROME 149 
 
 Alas ! the lofty city ! and alas ! 
 
 The trebly hundred triumphs ! and the day 
 When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
 
 The conqueror 's sword in bearing fame away ! 40 
 
 Alas for Tully's voice, and Vergil's lay, 
 
 And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
 Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. 
 
 Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see, 
 That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome 45 
 
 was free! 
 
 — Lord Byron. 
 
 Byron had been practically driven out of England by 
 his enemies, and he is doubtless thinking of himself when 
 he speaks, in the first stanza of ' * orphans of the heart, ' ' 
 but he contrasts the littleness of all such personal deso- 
 lation with the desolation of Rome. 
 
 trebly liundred triumphs (38) — Byron has a note on this passage 
 In which he quotes Oroslus as saying that there were 320 Romaa 
 triumphal processions. 
 
 When Brutus made, etc. (39) — referring to the murder of Caesar 
 by Brutus. This act won greater fame than the victories of gen- 
 erals. 
 
 but these shall be, etc. (42) — the works of Roman orators, poets, 
 and historians shall not perish.
 
 Days 
 
 151
 
 DAYS 153 
 
 DAYS 
 
 Emerson 's. favorite among his own poems was Days. 
 It was not only his favorite, but the theme of it comes 
 up again and again in his essays. The following passages, 
 quoted from them, perfectly explain the poem — explain 
 it as well as if they had been written for the purpose : 
 
 "Silent, passive, even sulkily, Nature offers every morning her 
 wealth to man. She is immensely rich ; he is welcome to ber entire 
 goods ; but she speaks no word, will not so much as beckon or 
 cough; only this, she is careful to leave all her doors ajar — 
 towers, hall, stateroom, and cellar. If he takes her hint and uses 
 her goods, she speaks no word ; if he slumbers and starves, she 
 says nothing." 
 
 "The Days are ever divine as to the first Aryans. They come 
 and go, like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant, friendly 
 party ; but they say nothing, and, if we do not use the gifts they 
 bring, they carry them as silently away." 
 
 "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the 
 year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that 
 every day is Doomsday. 'Tis the old secret of the gods that they 
 come in low disguises." 
 
 The Days are called "hypocritie" because they come 
 bearing their gifts in disguise. From their marvelous 
 store we may choose what we will — diadems and king- 
 doms and stars of love and life and hope and work, or 
 only food for the body and the things of the flesh ; or we 
 may even choose the fagots that set on fire and destroy 
 all the finer things of the spirit. 
 
 The poem is one of great beauty as well as great 
 power. It is a "criticism of life" in the highest sense. 
 No one who has fully learned its meaning can ever 
 forget it. Continually he will see the Days marching 
 by in endless file, "muffled and dumb like barefoot der-
 
 154 DAYS 
 
 visiles," each bearing in her hands all manner of gifts; 
 and when his choice is foolish or evil he will not fail to 
 see the scorn that clouds her shadowed brow as she turns 
 and departs, never, through infinite ages, to pass again 
 that way or offer him again her store. 
 
 If teachers are looking for a text, here it is : 
 
 DAYS 
 
 Daughters of Time, the hypoeritic Days, 
 
 Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 
 
 And marching single in an endless file, 
 
 Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
 
 To each they offer gifts after his will. 
 
 Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. 
 
 I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, 
 
 Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 
 
 Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 
 
 Turned and departed silent. I, too late. 
 
 Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. 
 
 — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 "/, in my pleached garden," etc., represents humanity generally, In 
 choosing the trifling gifts the Day brings, rather than the gifts that 
 ore beyond price or praise, and how the Day, under her solemn 
 fillet, looks with silent scorn upon such choice of gifts. 
 
 "Pleached" means interwoven, like the boughs of trees. 
 
 "Pomp" here means a pageant or procession.
 
 The Problem 
 
 155
 
 THE PROBLEM 157 
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 The best known and perhaps the greatest of Emer- 
 son's poems is The Problem, and it is doubtless one of 
 the three or four best poems in American literature. 
 
 The chief idea contained in it is the idea of sincerity 
 — a sincerity whole and absolute, like that of nature 
 herself, and this sincerity is possible only to those who 
 yield themselves to the Soul of the universe working in 
 them. Emerson believed that all such are "inspired," 
 whether they be artists, architects, poets, preachers, or 
 writers of sacred books. In a letter to John Sterling he 
 said: 
 
 "All thoughts are holy when they come floating up to us in 
 magical newness from the hidden Life, and 'tis no wonder we are 
 enamoured with these Muses and Graces. . . . Yet how we 
 thank and greet, and almost adore the person who has once or 
 twice in a lifetime treated anything sublimely, and certified to us 
 that he beheld the Law." 
 
 The Problem was originally called The Priest, and its 
 inception may be found in the following extracts from 
 Emerson's journal of August 28, 1838: 
 
 "It is very grateful to my feelings to go into a Roman Cathedral, 
 yet I look as my countrymen do at the Roman priesthood. It is 
 very grateful to me to go into an English Church and hear the 
 liturgy read, yet nothing would induce me to be the English 
 priest. 
 
 "I find an unpleasant dilemma in this, nearer home. I dislike to 
 be a clergyman and refuse to be one, yet how rich a music would 
 be to me a holy clergyman in my town. It seems to me he cannot 
 be a man, quite and whole; yet how plain is the need of one and 
 how high, yes, highest, is the function. Here is a division of 
 labor that I like not : a man must sacrifice his manhood for the 
 social good. Something is wrong ; I see not what."
 
 158 THE PROBLEM 
 
 Here we have stated in prose the question or problem 
 which he put into poetic form a year later (November 
 10, 1839) in The Problem. The inference is that one 
 cannot be wholly sincere and independent in his thinking 
 if he is circumscribed by the creeds, rituals, forms and 
 ceremonials of sectarianism. The only creed to which 
 Emerson subscribed was stated by him in these words: 
 "I believe in the still small voice; and that voice is 
 Christ within me." No priest or bishop or council had 
 any authority to tell him what to believe, or what man- 
 ner of worship to follow. 
 
 Holding this opinion, he points out in The Prohlem 
 the masterpieces of the world 's thought in art and archi- 
 tecture and literature, and declares that they all grew 
 out of a deep sincerity and an absolute devotion to the 
 voice within. The work of Phidias the Greek sculptor, 
 the old Greek and Roman oracles, the Bible, the national 
 litanies, St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome, the Parthenon, 
 the Pyramids, the great English abbeys, the law of 
 Moses, were all the results of that sincerity, in harmony 
 with "the vast soul that o'er him planned." Every 
 one of these great things is as natural as the grass or 
 the woodbird's nest. Vanity, cunning, cleverness had no 
 part in them. They came out of the heart of nature; 
 they grew out of the deepest instincts of the race. And 
 because they so originated and so grew they still inspire 
 mankind — the word unto the prophet spoken is still the 
 law of the world, and the word by seers or sibyls told is 
 still a part of the thought of the human race. 
 
 After meeting Carlyle, Emerson wrote, "The comfort 
 of meeting a man of geniusi is that he speaks sincerely";
 
 THE PROBLEM 159 
 
 and he found this element of sincerity to be the chief 
 characteristic of every great work of genius — always 
 and everywhere associated with what he called the Over- 
 Soul, or the Spirit of the Universe, or God. 
 
 His son, Edward "Waldo Emerson, in the notes to the 
 Centenary Edition of Emerson's Works, refers to the 
 following passages from the Essays as bearing upon The 
 Problem: 
 
 "Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as 
 earth and sun." — Society and Solitude. 
 
 "Santa Croce [a beautiful church in Florence] and the Dome 
 of St. Peter's are lame copies after a divine model." — Essay on 
 History. 
 
 "Above his will [the artist's] and out of his sight he is necessi- 
 tated by the air he breathes and the idea on which he and his 
 contemporaries live and toil, to share the manners of his times, 
 without knowing what that manner is. Now that which is in- 
 evitable in the work has a higher charm than individual talent can 
 ever give, inasmuch as the artist's pen or chisel seems to have been 
 held and guided by a gigantic hand to inscribe a line in the history 
 of the human race. This circumstance gives a value to the Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphics, to the Indian, Chinese and Mexican idols, how- 
 ever gross and shapeless. They denote the height of the human 
 soul in that hour, and were not fantastic, but sprung from a neces- 
 sity as deep as the world." — Essay on Art. 
 
 Notice the wide scope of illustrations used in The 
 Problem of works that all come under Emerson's law of 
 sincerity and devotion. We find here Greek art, pagan 
 oracles, the Bible, Catholic architecture, Greek archi- 
 tecture, Egyptian construction, and English architec- 
 ture. They serve not only to illustrate the universality 
 of the principle announced, but they serve equally well 
 to illustrate the breadth of Emerson's interests and 
 sympathies.
 
 160 THE PROBLEM 
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 I like a church ; I like a cowl ; 
 
 I love a prophet of the soul ; 
 
 And on my heart monastic aisles 
 
 Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles; 
 
 Yet not for all his faith can see 5 
 
 "Would I that cowled churchman be. 
 
 Why should the vest on him allure, 
 Which I could not on me endure? 
 
 Not from a vain or shallow thought 
 
 His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 10 
 
 Never from lips of cunning fell 
 
 The thrilling Delphic oracle; 
 
 Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 
 The burdens of the Bible old ; 
 
 The litanies of nations came, 15 
 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
 
 Up from the burning core below, — 
 
 The canticles of love and woe ; 
 
 Vest Uine 7) — Testments, ecclesiastical robes. 
 
 Phidias (10) — the most famous sculptor of the ancient Greeks. 
 
 His atcful Jove (10) — the masterpiece of Phidias, a colossal statue 
 of the god of war, executed for a temple at Olympia. in Greece. 
 
 Delphic oracle (12) — a celebrated oracle of Apoflo at Delphi on 
 the slope of Mt. Parnassus. The priestess who delivered the oracle was 
 at first always a young maiden but later always a woman not younger 
 than fifty, usually selected from some family of poor country people. 
 The oracle was implicitly believed in as being from Apollo. 
 
 lAtanies (15) — forms of public prayer. 
 
 Canticles (18) — songs or liymns.
 
 THE PROBLEM 161 
 
 The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 20 
 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 
 Himself from God he could not free ; 
 
 He builded better than he knew ; — 
 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew. 
 
 Know 'st thou what wove yon woodbird 's nest 25 
 Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? 
 Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 
 Painting with morn each annual cell ? 
 Or how the sacred pine-tree adds 
 , To her old leaves new myriads ? 30 
 
 Such and so grew these holy piles, 
 Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 
 Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
 
 Peter's dome (19) — the cathedral of St. Peter's In Rome; It Is 
 not only the chief glory of modern Rome but it is the most magnifi- 
 cent modern structure in the world. The most celebrated architects 
 of the time were engaged upon it, among them being Raphael, 
 Michael Angelo and Bernini. Just whose hand "rounded Peter's dome" 
 is uncertain ; probably the architect Delia Porta. This matchless dome 
 is 440 feet high, the building covers an area of 240,000 square feet, 
 required 176 years to build, and cost about seventy millions of dol- 
 lars, a sum which would be far greater to-day. 
 
 The aisles of Christian Rome (20) — in addition to St. Peter's there 
 are several hundred other chui'ches in Rome, most of them of marvelous 
 beauty of architecture and adornment, and erected during the cen- 
 turies of the greatest religious zeal. No one can look upon them and 
 not agree with Emerson's statement that their builders "wrought In 
 a sad sincerity." 
 
 These holy piles (31) — the great churches in Rome. 
 
 The Parthenon (33) — the temple of Athena at Athens, a great 
 Doric temple, the most perfect specimen of Greek architecture. 
 Phidias superintended its construction. It is now in a ruined con- 
 dition, caused by the explosion of a bomb in 1687 while the Turks 
 were using it as a magazine.
 
 162 THE PROBLEM 
 
 As the best gem upon her zone ; 
 
 And Morning opes with haste her lids, 35 
 
 To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 
 
 O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, 
 
 As on its friends, with kindred eye; 
 
 For, out of Thought 's interior sphere, 
 
 These wonders rose to upper air ; 40 
 
 And Nature gladly gave them place, 
 
 Adopted them into her race, 
 
 And granted them an equal date 
 
 With Andes and with Ararat. 
 
 These temples grew as grows the grass; 45 
 
 Art might obey, but not surpass. 
 
 The passive Master lent his hand 
 
 To the vast soul that o 'er him planned ; 
 
 And the same power that reared the shrine, 
 
 Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 50 
 
 Ever the fiery Pentecost 
 
 Girds with one flame the countless host, 
 
 Trances the heart through chanting choirs. 
 
 And through the priest the mind inspires. 
 
 The word unto the prophet spoken 55 
 
 Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 
 
 England's Ahbcys (37) — the most boautiful and majpstic build- 
 ings in England are its abbeys and cathedrals. St. Paul's, West- 
 minster, Canterbury, York, Gloucester, Wells, Chester, and other cath- 
 edrals, and the abbey ruins at Melrose and at Tintern seem indeed 
 to fulfill Emerson's description. They are as true to nature as are 
 the rivers and the hills. 
 
 Pentecost (51) — the day of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the 
 disciples. It appeared like a tongue of fire.
 
 THE PROBLEM 163 
 
 The word by seers or sibyls told, 
 
 In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, 
 
 Still floats upon the morning wind, 
 
 Still whispers to the willing mind. 60 
 
 One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 
 The heedless world hath never lost. 
 
 I know what say the fathers wise, — 
 
 The Book itself before me lies. 
 
 Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, 65 
 
 And he who blent both in his line, 
 
 The younger Golden Lips or mines, 
 
 Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. 
 
 His words are music in my ear, 
 
 I see his cowled portrait dear ; 70 
 
 And yet, for all his faith could see, 
 
 I would not the good bishop be. 
 
 ^ — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 Sibyls (57) — the name given to certain inspired proplietesses of 
 antiquity. There were ten of them, the Cumean sibyl being the most 
 celebrated. 
 
 Old Chrysostom (65) — John of Antioch, Bishop of Constantinople. 
 Two hundred years after his death the Ecumenical Council gave him 
 the name Chrysostom, or Golden Mouth. 
 
 Taylor (68) — Jeremy Taylor, author of Holy Living and Holy Dying. 
 Emerson says in his journal : "I have thought him a Christian Plato ; 
 so rich and great was his philosophy."
 
 Ode to the West Wind 
 
 165
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 167 
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 Shelley was reformer and prophet as well as poet. It 
 is now a hundred years since he was expelled from Uni- 
 versity College, Oxford, for writing a boyish tract with 
 a foolish and evil title; to-day the room he occupied is 
 the "Shelley Lecture Room," and under a great glass 
 dome near by in the same college rests the exquisite white 
 marble efRgy of his slight figure in naked purity — the 
 most beautiful memorial in Oxford. A little distance 
 away among the priceless treasures of the Bodleian 
 Library are a curl of his fair hair, his watch, his bunch 
 of seals, the little volume of Sophocles which he held in 
 his hand when he was drowned in the Gulf of Spezzia, 
 and other little personal belongings. When his ashes 
 were laid by the Aurelian wall in the Protestant ceme- 
 tery at Rome, one of the saddest and one of the most 
 beautiful spots in all the world, there were few or none 
 who dreamed that Oxford would take his memory into 
 its bosom and that the world would recognize him as the 
 greatest of all lyric poets and as a reformer whose voice 
 was the voice of a coming dawn. Slavery of every sort 
 he hated with a fiery hatred ; freedom of service, freedom 
 of worship, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, — 
 freedom of man in the widest sense — and universal 
 charity, he loved with a flaming love. As Oxford has 
 changed its attitude toward him personally from one of 
 persecution to one of reverence, so the world has come 
 to adopt most of his principles as the shibboleth of 
 twentieth-century regeneration for mankind; and from
 
 16S ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 his obscure grave by the Roman wall his voice is heard 
 around the world. 
 
 He wrote "as the prophet of liberty, equality, frater- 
 nity, and a Golden Age"; but he also wrote as the poet 
 of his own heart, his own soul. These two elements are 
 combined in perfect fusion in the Ode to the West Wind. 
 "The poem," as Professor Dowden saj'-s, "is the clarion 
 cry of hope in the presence of tumultuous ruin and in- 
 evitable decay, ' ' but the music of this hope for humanity 
 is made on the lyre of his personal emotions and the 
 passion of his own heart. The poem was written one 
 October day in a wood on the banks of the Arno near 
 Florence when a tempestuous wind was sweeping the 
 Cisalpine region and gathering the clouds for a terrific 
 storm, and thunder and lightning, hail and rain. The 
 theme of the poem at the beginning is the Avind as de- 
 stroyer and preserver, but the thought of the wind as a 
 destroyer is exhausted as the poem proceeds and its 
 character as a preserver continues to the last and tri- 
 umphs in the splendid imagery and prophecy of the clos- 
 ing lines. 
 
 In the first stanza he apostrophizes the wind as the 
 unseen power that drives before it the stricken leaves, 
 yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red ; but it also 
 carries the winged seeds to their wintry graves where 
 they are preserved until the wind of spring blows over 
 the warm earth, brings them to life again, and plain and 
 hill are filled with sweet buds like flocks that feed in air. 
 
 In the second stanza the theme is cai-ried on but new 
 images are introduced. He sees the wind as a stream 
 sweeping through the sky carrying on its surface clouds
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 169 
 
 like decaying leaves. Then the image, still true to the 
 central theme, changes again, and he conceives of the 
 spreading, winding, ever-changing clouds as the hair of 
 some Maenad floating on the wind ; they are the locks of 
 the approaching storm. He sees in the sky the same thing 
 he saw in the wood. The wind is still the destroyer; 
 and the second stanza closes with another aspect of the 
 same theme: the wind as the dirge of the dying year 
 of which the approaching night is to be the dome of a 
 vast sepulchre. 
 
 In the third stanza the wind passes from the earth and 
 the sky to the sea, rousing by its terrors the sleeping 
 Mediterranean, cleaving the Atlantic into chasms for 
 its pathway, and disturbing the plants in ocean's bed. 
 In a note Shelley says : ' ' The phenomenon alluded to at 
 the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to natu- 
 ralists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, 
 and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the 
 change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the 
 winds which announce it." Notice in this stanza the 
 exquisite picture of the old moss-grown and flower- 
 covered palaces and towers reflected in the still waters 
 of the Mediterranean. No artist ever painted a truer 
 picture. 
 
 In stanza four he unites himself with leaf and cloud 
 and wave, thus gathering up in order all of the images 
 that have gone before and continuing the theme. But 
 the thought of the wind as a destroyer is not mentioned 
 again, but only as a preserver of the seeds of life and 
 truth. He, too, like the wind, was "tameless, and swift, 
 and proud," but brutal persecution and the sadness of
 
 170 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 his heart had driven'him upon the thorns of life. Stanza 
 four carries the theme over from the sphere of nature to 
 the sphere of the human race, with Shelley as the agent. 
 It is not a side issue, but an essential step in the organic 
 unity of the poem. 
 
 In the closing stanza the theme reverts to the original 
 image of the wind in the wood, but as a preserver and 
 not as a destroyer ; and a new but kindred image, that of 
 the play of the wind upon a dying fire, is introduced. 
 His passionate cry is that his words and thoughts may be 
 scattered among mankind to be quickened in due time 
 in a more favoring soil into the fruits and flowers of a 
 New Day for all the race ; and may the voice of the wind 
 be the trumpet of a prophecy of that New Day! As 
 Stopford Brooke says: ''The last thought has now been 
 reached, the last realm over which the wind is sweeping. 
 It has passed through the forests of earth, through the 
 clouds of the sky, into the depths of ocean, through the 
 woods and sky and ocean of Shelley 's heart ; and then, at 
 the very point and climax of emotion, it leaves himself 
 and sweeps through all mankind, bearing away with it 
 dead things and the seeds of new. Out of the personal 
 Shelley passes into the universal, and at that moment the 
 future opened to him. Beyond the storm, beyond the 
 winter it ushers in, he sees the new awakened world, the 
 birth of all the seeds, the outburst as of a sx)ring in 
 humanity ; 
 
 O Wind. 
 If winter comes, can spring be far behind? 
 
 This is the lyric of lyrics. It is the hymn of our own
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 171 
 
 world. It ought to be set to music by a great musician, 
 but he should have the genius of Beethoven." 
 
 ANALYSIS 
 
 I. The Wind is conceived as both destroyer and preserver, 
 lines 1-14 
 
 1. The dead leaves are driven before it (1-5). 
 
 2. And the seeds of future life (5-14). 
 
 11. The idea of the Wind as destroyer continued (15-28). 
 
 1. The Wind compared to a stream (15). 
 
 2. And the clouds like dead leaves (16-17). 
 
 3. Or like messengers of the rain and lightning (18). 
 
 4. Or like a fierce Maenad's hair (20-23) spread on the 
 
 surface of the wind-stream (15-23). 
 
 5. The Wind compared to a dying year (23-24). 
 
 6. And the night to its vast sepulchre (24-28). 
 
 III. The idea of the Wind as destroyer continued (29-42). 
 
 1. It passes over the Mediterranean and destroys the images 
 
 on its surface (29-36). 
 
 2. It passes over the Atlantic and the vegetation in ocean's 
 
 bed trembles with fear (36-42). 
 
 IV. The theme is carried over from nature to the poet's life by 
 
 means of the figures of leaf, cloud, and wave already 
 used (43-56). 
 V. The theme widens to include all humanity, with the idea of the 
 Wind as preserver (56-70). 
 
 1. The poet like a lyre making music for mankind (56-61). 
 
 2. His thoughts scattered to quicken new ideas (63-64). 
 
 3. Or like sparks among mankind (65-67). 
 
 4. His lips like a trumpet of hope and prophecy of a new 
 
 dawn for the human race (68-70). 
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 1 
 
 O, Wild "West "Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
 Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
 Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.
 
 172 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
 
 Pestilence-stricken multitudes: 0, Thou, 5 
 
 "Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
 
 The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. 
 
 Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
 Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow 
 
 Her clarion o 'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 
 
 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
 With living hues and odours plain and hill : 
 
 Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere ; 
 Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O hear ! 
 
 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky 's 
 
 commotion, 15 
 
 Loose clouds like earth 's decaying leaves are shed, 
 Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, 
 
 Angels of rain and lightning : there are spread 
 
 On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 
 
 Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 
 
 Of the horizon to the zenith's height 
 The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
 Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
 
 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 
 
 anrjela {line 18) — messengers. This is the original meaning of tlie 
 word. 
 
 fierce Maenad (21) — a frenzied nympli in Greeit mythology.
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND; 173 
 
 Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
 
 Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
 
 Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : 0, hear I 
 
 3 
 
 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
 
 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 
 
 Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
 
 Beside a pumice isle in Baiae 's bay, 
 
 And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
 Quivering within the wave 's intenser day, 
 
 All overgrown Avith azure moss and flowers 35 
 
 So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
 For whose path the Atlantic 's level powers 
 
 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
 
 The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
 The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40 
 
 Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear. 
 And tremble and despoil themselves : 0, hear ! 
 
 4 
 
 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 
 If I were a swift cloud to fly vnih thee ; 
 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 
 
 congregated might of vapours (26 and 27) — "this brave o'er-hanging 
 firmament .... appears no other thing to me than a foul and 
 pestilent congregation of vapors." — Hamlet, Act III, scene 2, line 
 311. 
 
 Baiae (32) — not far from Naples.
 
 174 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
 Than thon, 0, uncontrollable! If even 
 I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
 
 The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
 
 As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50 
 
 Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne 'er have striven 
 
 As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
 
 Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
 I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 
 
 A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55 
 
 One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 
 
 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
 
 What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
 
 60 
 
 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone. 
 
 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce. 
 My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 
 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
 
 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! 
 And, by the incantation of this verse, 65
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 175 
 
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
 
 Ashes and sparks, my words- among mankind ! 
 Be through my lips to unawakened earth 
 
 The trumpet of a prophecy ! Wind, 
 
 If winter comes, can spring be far behind ? 70 
 
 — Percy Bysshe Shelley.
 
 The Cloud 
 
 177
 
 THE CLOUD 179 
 
 THE CLOUD 
 
 To float with the Cloud on the journey which Shelley 
 taljes us requires that the imagination shall be well under 
 control, but so does the reading of any genuine poem ; 
 and the control of the imagination can be cultivated just 
 as the control of the reasoning powers or of the memory 
 can be cultivated. The number of pictures in The Cloud 
 is amazing, and so is the rapidity with which they follow 
 one another ; yet it is not a kaleidoscopic view which one 
 gets, but a series of clear and distinct images, all con- 
 nected in the most vital manner with the central concep- 
 tion of the poem. The first stanza has five complete pic- 
 tures, the second two, the third two, the fourth one, the 
 fifth four, the sixth two. But each of these complete pic- 
 tures is really a group of smaller pictures, — for ex- 
 ample, the first picture in the second stanza {lines 13-16) 
 is made up of three distinct pictures, and the single 
 group comprising the fourth stanza is composed of six 
 pictures. In the opening line of the poem .there are the 
 three pictures represented by the Cloud, the showers, 
 and the thirsting flowers, but these three are grouped in 
 one, and the idea is made complete by the second line, in 
 which we see another picture sho'wang the vapor arising 
 from sea and river to form the Cloud. This process of 
 grouping is carried on throughout the poem. 
 
 Lines three and four give us an exquisite miniature of 
 leaves in the perfect calm of noonday, protected from the 
 sun by the Cloud. Lines 5-8 open up the whole expanse 
 of the earth's orbit and we hear the twitter of the morn-
 
 180 THE CLOUD 
 
 ing birds in the dewy groves as they are rocked on the 
 bosom of mother earth while she sweeps about the sun. 
 The stauza closes with a storm in which the fields are 
 white with sleet and hail, the hoarse laugh of the thunder is 
 heard and the Cloud finally dissolves in a downpour of rain. 
 
 In the second stanza the seasons have changed, the 
 great mountain pines are groaning under the weight of 
 snow, and the Cloud hangs about the top of the moimtain 
 in the arms of the blast. The figure changes again : the 
 lightning in its cloudy watch-tower acts as pilot, and 
 the thunder roars like a giant of the elder world. Above 
 the Cloud the sky is blue and smiling, while the lightning, 
 lured by the love of some mysterious but kindred spirit 
 in the great deep, is guiding the Cloud at his will. 
 
 There are two pictures in the third stanza: one may 
 be called "Morning" and the other "Evening." The 
 first is a picture of sunrise, blood-red, with meteor eyes, 
 and with streamers like burning plumes — a sunrise rid- 
 ing up out of the rim of the world on the back of dark 
 drifting Clouds, while the morning star stands lustreless 
 in the light of breaking day. It is a sunrise such as 
 Turner might have painted. But not content with draw- 
 ing the scene once, Shelley makes another picture and 
 compares the sunrise on the rolling Clouds to an eagle 
 on the top of an earthquake-shaken mountain crag. In 
 the "Evening" picture the Cloud hangs like a speck in 
 the crimson glow of the uttermost west, as still as a dove 
 upon her nest. 
 
 Stanza 4 may be called "Moonlight." It is midnight, 
 the sky is overcast with dry fleecy Clouds, a light breeze 
 is blowing, the moon is at the full. To the watcher below
 
 THE CLOUD 181 
 
 the moon seems to break through and in and out of the 
 fleecy Clouds, and with every widening of the rift the 
 stars fly out like a swarm of golden bees. The moon and 
 the stars are reflected in the waters below until the waters 
 seem to be paved in their silver and gold ; and the w^aters 
 themselves appear like strips of the blue sky fallen 
 through the rifts in the Cloud. How perfect the picture 
 is, but how different from the picture of the morning or 
 the picture of the sunset hour. And yet, no matter how 
 the pictures may vary, the central theme of the Cloud 
 dominates them all. 
 
 Stanza 5 presents a series of cloud-pictures with great 
 rapidity. First there is a shining Cloud around the 
 sun, followed by a ring around the moon. Then the 
 whirlwind begins to blow, the stars seem to reel and swim 
 among the Clouds, and the mountains and volcanoes 
 are wrapped in their mist. Then the whole heavens, from 
 horizon to horizon, are covered with a pall, upheld by 
 the mountains, as columns support a roof. At last the 
 storm is over, the rainbow swings across space as the 
 triumphal arch of the Cloud — the rainbow woven by 
 the sun ("the sphere-fire") while the moist earth is 
 laughing below. 
 
 The closing stanza is the poetic, but thoroughly scien- 
 tific, statement of the origin and nature of the Cloud. 
 It is born of sun and water, it is nursed in the sky, it 
 changes its form but it cannot die, for it goes through 
 the same cycle of changes forever. 
 
 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 
 
 And out of the caverns of rain, 
 Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 
 
 I arise and upbuild it again.
 
 182 THE CLOUD 
 
 Even here we have a remarkable number of figures 
 and images combining to build up the blue dome of 
 heaven (the cenotaph of the Cloud), and tear it down 
 again. 
 
 But it is not enough to see all of these pictures one by 
 one with the mind's eye, no matter how clearly, though 
 this is the first essential. To read The Cloud with some- 
 thing of the feeling in which it was written one must con- 
 ceive of it all as a single picture, a great canvas, in which 
 the spirit of the Cloud is moving like a thing alive, like 
 a god of the old pagan world; and the reader's imagina- 
 tion must so fuse all of the separate parts in the glow 
 of its flame that they will make a harmonious whole 
 "without rent or seam or any such thing." The Cloud 
 is in no sense a descriptive poem — it is vastly more and 
 different. It is akin to the nature-myths of the old Greek 
 world. The Cloud is represented as an eternal primeval 
 force alive with energy and activity and manifesting 
 itself in myriad forms and colors. This is the central 
 conception or theme of the poem ; it vitalizes every line, 
 gives significance to every image, and lends majesty and 
 power to the whole. 
 
 THE CI.OUD 
 1 
 
 I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 
 
 From the seas and the streams ; 
 I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
 
 In their noonday dreams.
 
 THE CLOUD 183 
 
 From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 5 
 
 The sweet birds every one, 
 "When rocked to rest on their mother 's breast, 
 
 As she dances about the sun. 
 I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
 
 And whiten the green plains under, 10 
 
 And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
 
 And laugh as I pass in thunder. 
 
 I sift the snow on the mountains below, 
 
 And their great pines groan aghast; 
 And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 15 
 
 While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
 Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, 
 
 Lightning, my pilot, sits ; 
 In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 
 
 It struggles and howls at fits ; 20 
 
 Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 
 
 This pilot is guiding me. 
 Lured by the love of the genii that move 
 
 In the depths of the purple sea ; 
 Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 25 
 
 Over the lakes and the plains, 
 Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 
 
 The Spirit he loves remains ; 
 And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, 
 
 Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 30 
 
 their mother's breast {Une 7) r— -the earth. 
 genii (23) — spirits.
 
 1S4 THE CLOUD 
 
 The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 
 
 And his burning plumes outspread, 
 Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 
 
 When the morning star shines dead ; 
 As on the jag of a mountain crag, 35 
 
 Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
 An eagle alit one moment may sit 
 
 In the light of its golden wings, 
 And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath. 
 
 Its ardours of rest and of love, 40 
 
 And the crimson pall of eve may fall 
 
 From the depths of heaven above, 
 With wings folded I rest, on my airy nest. 
 
 As still as a brooding dove. 
 
 That orbed maiden with white fire laden 45 
 
 Whom mortals call the moon, 
 Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 
 
 By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
 And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
 
 Wliich only the angels hear, 50 
 
 May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 
 
 The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
 And I laugh to see them whirl and flee. 
 
 Like a swarm of golden bees, 
 
 Hunvuine (31) — blood-red. 
 rack (33) — dark drifting clouds. 
 
 vnth white fire laden (4.5) — Of coiirsp, the moon has no "Are" of 
 Its own ; Its light is reflected from the eun.
 
 THE CLOUD 185 
 
 Wlien I wideu the rent of my wind-built tent, 55 
 
 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas. 
 Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high. 
 
 Are each paved with the moon and these. 
 
 I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone. 
 
 And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 60 
 
 The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 
 
 When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
 From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape. 
 
 Over a torrent sea. 
 Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 65 
 
 The mountains its columns be. 
 The triumphal arch through which I march 
 
 With hurricane, fire, and snow. 
 When the powers of the air are chained to my chair. 
 
 Is the million-coloured bow : 70 
 
 The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 
 
 While the moist earth was laughing below. 
 
 I am the daughter of earth and water, 
 
 And the nursling of the sky; 
 I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 75 
 
 I change, but I cannot die. 
 For after the rain when with never a stain. 
 
 The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
 And the winds and sunbeams wdth their convex gleams, 
 
 Build up the blue dome of air, 80 
 
 these (58) — the stars.
 
 1S6 THE CLOUD 
 
 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 
 
 And out of the caverns of rain, 
 Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 
 
 I arise and upbuild it again. 
 
 — Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 cenotaph (81) — amcmpty tomb. 
 
 Concerning lines 17-30, Mr. W. J. Alexander says: 
 "What natural phenomenon is described in the poetical 
 language of these lines is by no means clear. Since the 
 pilot is the lightning, Shelley may, perhaps, have thought 
 that the motion of clouds is influenced by electric forces 
 existing in the earth, and may represent these forces by 
 'genii.' The pilot moves the cloud over that part of the 
 earth where he dreams the spirit (the electric force) re- 
 mains."
 
 Ode to a Nightingale 
 
 187
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 189 
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 The great odes of Keats are six in number : Ode to a 
 Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Psyche, To 
 Autumn, Ode on Melancholy, and Ode on Indolence — 
 all written between the spring of 1819 and the autumn 
 of that year. This was the period of his best work, and 
 these odes are unequaled in English literature. Keats 
 was then twenty-four years of age. 
 
 Swinburne thus estimates the group : 
 
 "Of these perhaps the two nearest to absolute perfection, to 
 the triumphant achievement and accomplishment of the very ut- 
 most beauty possible to human words, may be that To Autumn 
 and that On a Grecian Urn; the most radiant, fervent, and 
 musical is that To a Nightingale; the most pictorial, and perhaps 
 the tenderest in its ardor of passionate fancy, is that To Psyche; 
 the subtlest in sweetness of thought and feeling is that On Melan- 
 choly. Greater lyrical poetry the world may have seen than any 
 that is in these ; lovelier it surely has never seen, nor ever can it 
 possibly see." 
 
 The Ode Ma Nightingale is fhe most personal of them 
 all. Mr. Robert Bridges, the present Poet Laureate, 
 Bays of it: *'I could not name an English poem of the 
 same length which contains so much beauty as this ode. ' ' 
 
 It was in May of 1819 that this poem was written. 
 Keats was residing at Hampstead with his friend Charles 
 Armitage Brown, and was in deep grief over the recent 
 death of his brother Tom, and over the knowledge of 
 his own fatal illness with consumption, the family dis- 
 ease, of which he himself died two years later ; moreover 
 his emotions were deeply stirred with his love for Fanny 
 Brawne — a love which he realized his physical condi-
 
 190 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 tion made hopeless. Add to these things the fact that 
 the Reviewers were pouring their brutal abuse upon his 
 head, and some idea may be formed of the state of his 
 sensitive but manly soul. "One morning," says Brown, 
 "he took his chair from the breakfast table to the grass- 
 plot under a plum (where a nightingale made its nest) 
 where he sat for two or three hours. "When he came 
 into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper 
 in his hand, and these he was quickly thrusting behind 
 the books. jOn inquiry, I found these scraps, four or 
 five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song 
 of our nightingale. The writing was not well legible; 
 and it was difficult to arrange the stanzas on so many 
 scraps. With his assistance I succeeded, and this was 
 his Ode to a Nightingale." 
 
 The present occupants of the house inform me that 
 it was a large plane-tree (the American sycamore) under 
 which Keats wrote the poem. This tree still stands in the 
 yard, and nearly every year a nightingale builds her nest 
 in it. Perhaps Brown wrote plane and the printer made 
 it plum. 
 
 Concerning the English nightingale, Mr. Arthur C. 
 Downer, of Oxford University, says : 
 
 "April is the month in which the nightinprale returns from 
 North-west Africa, and upon its reappearance in this country it 
 seems filled with joy. It dwells in woods and groves near to 
 waters, such woods as are still found at TIampstead. Hour by 
 hour, and day after day, the bird pours forth its flood of song, and 
 in the night its voice is often heard more rich and striking, because 
 of the hush of all competing sounds." 
 
 The music of the nightingale is thus analyzed by Mr. 
 Robert Bridges :
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 191 
 
 "The song of the nightingale is, to the hearer, full of assertion, 
 promise, and cheerful expectancj', and of pleading and tender pas- 
 eiouate overflowing in long drawn-out notes, interspersed with plenty 
 of playfulness and conscious exhibition of musical skill. What- 
 ever pain or sorrow may be expressed by it, it is idealized — that 
 is, it is not the sorrow of a sufferer but the perfect expression of 
 sorrow by an artist, who must have felt, but is not feeling ; and 
 the ecstasy of the nightingale is stronger than its sorrow, although 
 different hearers may be differently affected according to their 
 moods." 
 
 Keats in a sad mood gave it its immortal interpreta- 
 tion. In studying the poem the mistake should not be 
 made of thinking it was the particular nightingale he 
 had heard that morning singing in the Hampstead gar- 
 den that he addresses his ode to, but as Palgrave says, ' ' a 
 type of the race imagined as singing in some far-off scene 
 of woodland mystery and beauty. Thither he sighs to 
 follow her." 
 
 The stages of his emotion are easy to follow. He 
 begins with a description of the effect produced upon him 
 by the song: it is like that of an opiate. This effect is 
 realized through his being "too happy in thy happi- 
 ness," Keats was remarkably sensitive to all sweet 
 sights and sounds ; so sensitive that they sometimes made 
 him tremble and weep for joy. On one occasion he was 
 so overcome by the influence of a beautiful scene in 
 nature that he was unable to rise from his seat on the 
 ground. Perhaps the soul of no other English poet was 
 ever so perfectly attuned to the harmony of exquisite 
 sights and sounds. The statement in the opening stanza 
 is therefore doubtless literally true. 
 
 He follows this in the next two stanzas with the wish 
 for the aid of some draught of vintage in order that he 
 may forget his own sad estate and join in the joy of the
 
 192 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 happy songster — forget "the weariness, the fever, and 
 the fret" with which his soul at that moment was so 
 heavy. The line 
 
 "Where youth grows pale and spectrc-thiu aud dies"' 
 doubtless has reference to the death of his brother Tom, 
 of consumption. The sadness of the lines in the third 
 stanza is equalled only by their beauty. In writing 
 about his sister a little later Keats said : "It runs in my 
 head that we shall all die young, ' ' 
 
 — "beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes 
 
 Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrorw." 
 
 But he rejects the thought of the need of wine and 
 determines to fly with the spirit of the nightingale upon 
 the wings of Poesy — upon those viewless wings of the 
 imagination w^hich he possessed in such richness. And 
 so he fancies himself already wdth the songster; it is 
 night and the moon and stars are in their glory. There 
 is no light save that made by them. Far above the 
 earth, he cannot see w^hat Howers are below him, but he 
 can guess them all — the hawthorn, the violets, the 
 sweetbrier, the musk-rose, and the rest "wherewith the 
 seasonable month endows the grass, the thicket, and the 
 fruit-tree wild. ' ' 
 
 Thus, seeing but dimly, he listens ; and in his ecstasy 
 he feels how sweet it would be to die thus at midnight 
 with no pain, while the nightingale is pouring forth its 
 soul in such joy and with his own soul in perfect har- 
 mony with it. 
 
 The thought of dying suggests, by way. of contrast, the 
 immortality of the nightingale of which this particular 
 nightingale is the type. The song he hears is the same
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 108 
 
 song heard in ancient days. The individual dies, but the 
 song goes on forever and forever. The song that Keats 
 heard a hundred years ago is still heard in Hampstead 
 Heath. The seventh stanza is matchless in its beauty 
 and its magic power. Lovers of poetry agree that these 
 lines are of extraordinary loveliness. "We read the 
 words, ' ' says I\Ir. Downer, ' ' and seem to behold, in high 
 romance, the shadowy enchanter's castle in a kingdom 
 by the sea, the lonely tower of which encloses an im- 
 prisoned princess, held in duress ; and when the rich full 
 note of the nightingale breaks upon the captive ear, she 
 throws open her window to listen and to look out over 
 the wild waves for the ship that shall bring the knight 
 of her deliverance." 
 
 The word "forlorn" calls the poet back from the far- 
 off days of Ruth, the magic casements, the faery lands, to 
 himself and his unhappy condition. The fancy cheated 
 him for awhile and he was away with the nightingale 
 through the Middle Ages, and Biblical times, and beyond 
 perilous seas, but the spell is over. The plaintive anthem 
 fades away and is gone. "No more for him the sweet 
 beguilement. " 
 
 ANALYSIS 
 
 I. The effect of the Nishtingale's song, with associated thoughts, 
 is like that of an opiate. Lines 1-10. 
 II. The poet longs for some draught of wine to make him lose 
 himself and follow the Nightingale and forget the griefs 
 of life (11-.30). 
 III. The need of wine is rejected, and he follows on the wings of 
 imagination (31-00). 
 
 1. The moon is up but the liiht is pale (.3.5-40. 
 
 2. He cannot see but can only guess the flowers far below 
 
 him (41-50).
 
 194 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 3. It would be sweet to die under such conditions (51-60). 
 rV. The deathless character of the Nightingale's song (61-70). 
 
 1. It was heard iu ancient days (G4). 
 
 2. It was heard by Ruth in the fields of Boaz (65-67). 
 
 3. It was heard on the shores of far-away seas in lands of 
 
 fairy-lore (68-70). 
 v. The imaginative flight is ended ; the song dies away ; the poet 
 is called back to himself and his unhappy state (71-80). 
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 1 
 
 My heart aches, and a drowsy numhness pains 
 My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
 Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
 
 One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk ; 
 'Tis not through envy of thy happj^ lot, 5 
 
 But being too happy in thy happiness, — 
 That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, 
 In some melodious plot 
 Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
 
 Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10 
 
 2 
 
 for a draught of vintage, that hath been 
 Cool 'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
 
 As thour/h of hemlock, etc. (line 2) — Koats had studied medicine 
 and knew the effects of opiates and poisons. 
 
 Lethe-ivards (4) — towards forgetfulness. A river in the lower 
 world was called Lethe. The souls of the departed drank of this 
 river and forgot all they had said and done in the upper world. 
 Lethe was also the name of a river in Spain, called the river of 
 'Forgotfulness. 
 
 Dryad (7) — a nymph of the trees. This is a very happy designation 
 for the nightingale — "light-winged Dryad of the trees."
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 195 
 
 Tasting of Flora and the country-green, 
 
 Dance, and Provengal song, and sun-burnt mirth ! 
 for a beaker full of the warm South, 15 
 
 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
 With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
 And purple-stained mouth ; 
 That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 
 And with thee fade away into the forest dim ; 20 
 
 3 
 
 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
 
 "What thou among the leaves hast never known, 
 The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
 
 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan : 
 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25 
 
 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; 
 Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
 And leaden-eyed despairs ; 
 Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
 
 Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30 
 
 4 
 Away ! away ! for I will fly to thee, 
 
 Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards. 
 
 Flora (13) — tbo Roman goddess of flowers and spring. 
 
 Provencal (14) — relating to Provence in tlie south of France; 
 liquid and musical tones. 
 
 Hippocrene (16) — a fountain in Mt. Helicon in Greece sacred to 
 tlie Muses, said to have been produced by the horse Tegasus striking 
 the ground with his foot ; Pegasus being the horse of the Muses upon 
 which poets soar. 
 
 Bacchus (32) — the god of wine. 
 
 Pards (32) — panthers; Bacchus was often represented In Greek 
 art as riding on a panther.
 
 106 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 But on tho viewless wings of Poesy, 
 
 Though the dull brain perplexes and retards : 
 Already with thee ! tender is the night, 35 
 
 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
 Cluster 'd around by all her starry Faj's; 
 But here there is no light, 
 Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 
 Through verdurous glooms and winding 40 
 
 mossy ways. 
 
 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 
 
 Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 
 But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 
 
 "Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
 The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ; 45 
 
 White hawthorne, and the pastoral eglantine ; 
 Fast-fading violets cover 'd up in leaves ; 
 And mid-May's eldest child, 
 The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 
 The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50 
 
 Darkling I listen ; and for many a time 
 
 I have been half in love Avith easeful Death, 
 
 Call 'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 
 To take into the air my quiet breath ; 
 
 Fays (37) — fairies. 
 
 BcmonaWc month (44) — the month in Its season. 
 
 erjlaniinc (4(5) — a spocios of roso. 
 
 Darkling (51) — dlmlj', indistinctly, vaguely.
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 197 
 
 Now more than ever seems it rich to die, — ■ 55 
 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 
 While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
 In such an ecstasy ! 
 Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — 
 To thy high requiem become a sod. 60 
 
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird ! 
 
 No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
 The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
 
 In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65 
 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, 
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
 The same that oft-times hath 
 Charm 'd magic easements, opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70 
 
 8 
 
 Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell 
 
 To toll me back from thee to my sole self I 
 
 Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
 As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
 
 Alien corn (67) — wheat, and barley in the land of Roaz. 
 Elf (74) — a little sprite or imaginary supernatural being much like 
 a fairy.
 
 198 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 
 
 Past the near meadoAvs, over the still stream, 
 Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep 
 In the next valley-glades : 
 Was it a vision, or a waking dream ? 
 
 Fled is that music : — do I wake or sleep ? 80 
 
 — John Keats. 
 
 In connection with this poem read Shelley's Ode to a 
 Skylark, Matthew Arnold's Philomela and Words- 
 worth's To a Cuckoo.
 
 Ode on a Grecian Urn 
 
 199
 
 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 201 
 
 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 
 
 'The main conception upon which Keats 's Ode on a 
 Grecian Urn is based is the permanent and unchanging 
 character of the beautiful as expressed in the plastic art 
 as compared with its change and brevity in nature and in 
 human life ; but there are four other ideas in the poem of 
 great importance: (1) the superiority of art to poetry; 
 (2) the kinship of art with infinity and eternity; (3) the 
 identity of beauty and truth; (4) the supreme value of 
 the knowledge of this identity. 
 
 In the garden, of Holland House, London, there may 
 still be seen a large marble urn or vase which is pointed 
 out as the particular urn which inspired this beautiful 
 poem, but to the present writer it seems more probable 
 that Keats had in mind an urn in the British Museum. 
 The Holland House urn does not fill Keats 's description : 
 there are no youths and maidens, no love scenes, no "wild 
 ecstasy," no "fair youth beneath the trees," no lowing 
 heifer lead to the altar. The animals on it are a hog 
 and a bull, there are twelve human figures, and there are 
 preparations for a sacrifice, but not such as Keats de- 
 scribes. The poet may possibly have had this urn in 
 mind, or he may have had in mind some other ; it does not 
 matter. The thing the reader needs to do is to see in his 
 imagination the work of art as portrayed by the poet, and 
 get his thought and his feeling. The reader should con- 
 ceive of an ancient marble vase of Greek art, one side of 
 which is covered with figures in relief representing a syl- 
 van scene, with deities or mortals, men and maidens, a
 
 202 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 
 
 lover pursuing a maiden who is trying playfully to 
 escape, a youth playing a pipe beneath a tree; it is 
 spring, and the scene is full of verdure and song and 
 gladness and love. On the other side of the vase is an 
 altar covered with green boughs, a heifer decked with 
 garlands is being led by a priest to the sacrifice, and the 
 people from some little town are coming to take part in 
 the rite. The town itself is not represented on the urn, 
 but the poet sees it as clearly as if it were there. Here, 
 then, we have the "material" out of which the poem is 
 made. 
 
 In Stanza 1 the poet apostrophizes the urn as the 
 "bride of quietness" and the "foster-child of silence and 
 slow time," implying that it has been speechless except 
 with the voice of art and denoting the long time it has 
 existed from classic to modem days. It is an element in 
 the silence of the centuries. It is a " sylvan historian, ' * 
 because it portraj^s a sylvan scene and tells in its own 
 way a "flowery tale." The declaration that this old 
 Greek urn can ' ' express a flowery tale more sweetly than 
 our rhyme" raises the question of the comparative power 
 of expression possessed by art and b}' poetry. Mr. Downer 
 {The Odes of Keats, Oxford, 1897) says: "The poet 
 perceives the inner meaning of the figures on the urn 
 and recognizes the superiority in some respects of an 
 artistic over a poetic presentation of ideas. What are 
 these respects? Keats says that the urn tells the story 
 'more sweetly' than poetry. We are here in the meta- 
 physics of art, and the passage is one amongst others 
 that go to show that Keats was not only a seeker after 
 the beautiful, but was ripening for deeper thought, a
 
 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 203 
 
 more mature and philosophic brain-work." Those who 
 care to follow the subject further should read Matthew 
 Arnold's Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoon. After express- 
 ing the supremacy of art over poetry, Keats goes on to 
 question the urn as to the legends on its sides. Are 
 these beings men or gods? What maidens are these? 
 The questions are left unanswered: the imagination is 
 free to frame its own reply; but the profitable reader 
 must hear the pipes and timbrels and must see, even as 
 Keats saw, the wild ecstasy. 
 
 Stanza 2 begins with the famous line, 
 
 "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
 Are sweeter" — 
 
 those which are heard in the imagination, in the soul. 
 The melodies heard by a poet like Milton or a musician 
 like Beethoven were doubtless sweeter and richer than 
 those made by any earthly instruments. The relative 
 truth of Keats 's statement will depend upon the imagi- 
 native and musical powers of the reader. The youth on 
 the urn does not pipe to the ear of sense but to the 
 spirit, and so his song goes on forever. The permanence 
 of art and of the delights it depicts is pointed out: the 
 trees will be for ever green, the maiden for ever fair. 
 
 This permanence of art, and its superiority over 
 nature, are further emphasized in Stanza 3. The lover 
 and the maiden, the musician and the boughs of green, 
 are gone centuries ago from real life, but art has made 
 them ours for ever here on the urn. How happy they 
 should all be that they can thus endure, and how fortu- 
 nate!
 
 204 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 
 
 In Stanza 4 the poet turns to the other side of the 
 urn and sees the preparations for the religious sacrifice, 
 and in his fanc}^ beholds, also, the little town whose 
 inhabitants have come out "this pious morn" to take 
 part in the ceremony to the gods. And this little town, 
 also true to the demands of art, will silent be for ever- 
 more and not a soul will ever return to its streets, for 
 here they are, fixed for all time on the sides of this old 
 urn. 
 
 The closing stanza, like the first, apostrophizes the 
 "Attic shape" in its "fair attitude," and, with splendid 
 reach of thought and imagination, exclaims, 
 
 "Thou, silent form, doth tease us out of thought 
 As doth Eternity — !" 
 
 This is perhaps the most spacious and highly poetic 
 conception of the entire poem. To appreciate it one 
 must have felt the mysterious and mighty power of some 
 great work of art and realized its kinship with the things 
 that are eternal. ' ' Our thought can no more compass the 
 ideas and feelings awakened by the urn than it can 
 comprehend eternity itself. The same kind of baffled 
 feeling is produced as when we strive to grasp the infin- 
 ite." 
 
 Finally we have the famous dictum or message of 
 the urn that "beauty is truth, truth beauty," and the 
 life-creed of Keats that this is all that man needs to 
 know on earth. "To see things in their beauty," says 
 ]\ratthow Arnold, "is to see things in their truth, and 
 Keats knew it. 'What the imagination seizes as beauty 
 must be truth,' he says in prose; and in immortal verse 
 he has said the same thing:
 
 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 205 
 
 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is nil 
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' 
 
 *'No, it is not all; but it is true, deeply true, and we 
 have deep need to know it. And with beauty goes not 
 only truth, joy goes with her also ; and this, too, Keats 
 saw and said, as in the first line of his Endymion it 
 stands written 
 
 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.' 
 
 "It is no small thing to have so loved the principle of 
 beauty as to perceive the necessary relation of beauty 
 and truth, and of both with joy. Keats was a great 
 spirit, and counts for far more than many even of his 
 admirers suppose, because this just and high perception 
 made itself clear to him. ' ' 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 I. The poet introduces the reader to the old Greek urn and the 
 figures on one side of it. Lines 1-10. 
 
 1. The urn is like a bride of quietness (1). 
 
 2. Like a foster-child of silence (2). 
 
 3. It is a historian of sylvan scenes, with legends of deities 
 
 or mortals (3-8). 
 
 4. The tale is told more sweetly here than it could be ia 
 
 poetry. 
 
 5. A sylvan scene of love and play (8-10). 
 
 II. Suggested or imagined melodies sweeter than those we hear 
 (11-14). The shepherds are urged to play on for the ear 
 of the spirit (12-14). 
 III. The permanence of art (15-30). 
 
 1. The youth on this urn will always sing (15-16). 
 
 2. The trees will always be in leaf (IG). 
 
 3. The lover will forever be bold and the maiden fair 
 
 (17-20). 
 
 4. It will always be spring (21-22). 
 
 5. The songs will always be new (22-24).
 
 206 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 
 
 0. The love here portrayed will alwaj-s be young (25-27). 
 
 7. This love is a higher passion than that in life which 
 brings its regrets (28-30). 
 IV. The other side or view of the urn is presented (31-40). 
 
 1. A sacrificial scene — the people (31-34). 
 
 2. The priest, the sacrificial heifer. 
 
 3. The little town (not shown on the urn but imagined) 
 
 from which the people come to the sacrifice (35-37). 
 
 4. The streets of this town will be empty forever, for here 
 
 the people are at the sacrifice ! 
 v. Art like this has a kinship with eternity ; to know beauty is to 
 know truth, but they baffle ("tease") us with something 
 of the sense of eternity (41-50). 
 
 ODE OX A GRECIAN URN 
 1 
 
 Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 
 
 Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 
 Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 
 
 A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : 
 What leaf -f ring 'd legend haunts about thy shape 5 
 
 Of deities or mortals, or of both. 
 In Tempe or the dales of Arcady ? 
 
 "What men or gods are these ? What maidens loth ? 
 What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 
 
 What pipes and timbrels ? Wliat wild ecstasy ? 10 
 
 2 
 
 Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
 Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on : 
 
 Icaf-Jringed (line 5) — doubtless referring to the border round the 
 urn. 
 
 Tempe (7) — a vale in Thessaly, celebrated by Greek poets on ac- 
 count of its beautiful scenery. 
 
 Arcady (7) — Arcadia, a mountainous district in the Peloponnesus, 
 taken as the ideal region of rural contentment.
 
 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 207 
 
 Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear 'd. 
 
 Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : 
 Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15 
 Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; 
 Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 
 Though winning near the goal — j'et, do not grieve ; 
 She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 
 For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair ! 20 
 
 3 
 
 Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 
 
 Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu ; 
 And, happy melodist, unwearied. 
 
 For ever piping songs for ever new ; 
 More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! 25 
 
 For ever warm and still to be enjoy 'd, 
 For ever panting, and for ever young ; 
 All breathing human passion far above, 
 
 That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy 'd, 
 A burning forehead and a parcliing tongue. 30 
 
 4 
 
 Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? 
 
 To what green altar, mysterious priest, 
 Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies. 
 
 And all her silken flanks with garlands drest ? 
 "What little town by river or sea shore, 35 
 
 Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel. 
 Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn ? 
 
 sensual ear (13) — ear of sense. 
 
 human passion far above (28) — passion far above human passion.
 
 208 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 
 
 And little town, thy streets for evermore 
 Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell 
 
 Why thou art desolate, can e'er return^ 40 
 
 Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! With brede 
 
 Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
 With forest branches and the trodden weed; 
 
 Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 
 As doth Eternity : Cold Pastoral ! 45 
 
 Wlien old age shall this generation waste, 
 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
 Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 
 
 * * Beauty is truth, truth beauty, ' ' — that is all 
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50 
 
 — John Keats. 
 
 Attic shape (41) — pertaining to Attica (Greece) or to its capital, 
 Athens ; Greeli. 
 
 fair attitude (41) — •pleasing appearance. 
 
 brede (41) — braid. 
 
 overwrought (42) — -worked all over. 
 
 Cold pastoral (45) — a pastoral, or rural poem, in marble. 
 
 friend to man (48) — because of the lesson it teaches in the next 
 line.
 
 The Sermon of St. Francis 
 
 209
 
 THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 211 
 
 THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Longfellow's little poem called The Sermon of St. 
 Francis has reference to one of the most famous sermons 
 in the world. This sermon is very brief (perhaps that is 
 one reason why it is so famous), and it may never have 
 been preached at all ; it may be only legendary. 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi was born at Assisi, Italy, in 1182 
 and died 1226. He was the founder of the great order 
 of Franciscan Monks. Incidentally I may call attention 
 to the fact that the city of San Francisco was named 
 for him. Saint Francis lived in great simplicity, and 
 he loved birds and beasts as w^ell as men. For two hun- 
 dred years after his death his sayings and sermons were 
 handed down by word of mouth, but they were finally 
 collected under the title of The Little Flowers of Saint 
 Francis. From this collection of legends the story of 
 his famous sermon to the birds as well as the little sermon 
 itself is taken. The legend goes on to say that one day, 
 with his companions, passing on his way he raised his 
 eyes and saw certain trees by the roadside in which were 
 an infinite multitude of birds; at which Saint Francis 
 marveled greatly, and said to his companions, ''Await 
 me here in the road, and I will go and preach to my 
 sisters the birds." And he entered the field and began 
 to preach to the birds which were on the ground, and 
 suddenly those which were in the trees came down to 
 him, and as many as there were they all stood quietly 
 until Saint Francis had done preaching, and even then
 
 212 THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 they did not depart until such, time as he had given them 
 his blessing. 
 
 Following is the sermon preached by Saint Francis to 
 his little sisters the birds : 
 
 "My sisters the birds, ye are greatly beholden unto God your 
 Creator, and always and in every place it is your duty to praise 
 Him, for as miu-b as He hath given you freedom to tly in every 
 place ; also hath He given you raiment twofold and threefold 
 almost, because He preserved your seed in the ark of Noah, that 
 your race might never be less. Again ye are beholden to Him for 
 the element of the air, which He has deputed unto you ; moreover 
 you sow not, neither do you reap, and God feeds you and gives you 
 the streams and fountains for your thrift. He gives you mountains 
 and valleys for your refuge, tall trees wherein to make your nests, 
 and inasmuch as you neither spin nor weave, God clothes you, you 
 and your children. Hence you should love your Creator greatly, 
 who gives you such great benefits, and therefore beware, my sis- 
 ters, of the sin of ingratitude, and ever strive to pi'aise God." 
 
 Finally, his preaching ended, Saint Francis made them 
 the sign of the cross and gave them leave to depart ; and 
 then all the birds rose into the air with wondrous songs, 
 and, according to the cross which Saint Francis had made 
 over them, they divided into four parts, and then one 
 part flew towards the east, and one towards the west, and 
 one towards the south, and one towards the north, and 
 each band went away singing marvelous songs. 
 
 THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Up soared the lark into the air, 
 A shaft of song, a winged prayer, 
 As if a soul, released from pain. 
 Were flying back to heaven again.
 
 THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 213 
 
 St. Francis heard ; it was to him 
 
 An emblem of the Seraphim ; 
 
 The upward motion of the fire, 
 
 The light, the heat, the heart's desire. 
 
 Around Assisi's convent gate 
 The birds, God 's poor who cannot wait, 
 From moor and mere and darksome wood 
 Came flocking for their dole of food. 
 
 "0 brother birds," St. Francis said, 
 * ' Ye come to me and ask for bread, 
 But not with bread alone to-day- 
 Shall ye be fed and sent away. 
 
 "Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds, 
 
 With manna of celestial words ; 
 
 Not mine, though mine they seem to be. 
 
 Not mine, though they be spoken through me. 
 
 * ' doubly are ye bound to praise 
 The great Creator in your lays ; 
 He giveth you your plumes of down. 
 Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown. 
 
 ' ' He giveth you your wings to fly 
 And breathe a purer air on high. 
 And careth for you everywhere, 
 Who for yourselves so little care !" 
 
 With flutter of swift wings and songs 
 Together rose the feathered throngs,
 
 214 THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 And singing scattered far apart; 
 Deep peace was in St. Francis' heart. 
 
 He knew not if the brotherhood 
 His homily had understood ; 
 He only knew that to one ear 
 The meaning of his words was clear. 
 
 — H. W. Longfellow.
 
 Hymn of the Moravian Nuns 
 of Bethlehem 
 
 215
 
 HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS 217 
 
 HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS OF 
 BETHLEHEM 
 
 When General Lafayette visited the United States in 
 1824 he was received with great enthusiasm everywhere. 
 Nilcs's Register for October 16, 1824 (quoted in the 
 North American Review for April, 1825), in describing 
 his entrance into Baltimore, says : 
 
 "As the General passed down the line, a sacred and interesting 
 relic of the revolution was presented to his notice. It was the 
 original standard of the brave and generous General Count Pulaski, 
 whose heroism and devotion to the cause of liberty are conspicuous in 
 the records of the war of independence. The corps of Forsyth's 
 riflemen had solicited and obtained from its possessor, the worthy 
 Colonel Bentalou, the honour of carrying this standard upon the 
 day of the General's arrival in the city ; and it was on this occasion 
 displayed upon one of the spears used by the lancers of the legion, 
 entwined with Pulaski's sword belt. It was when this gallant 
 officer received his mortal wound in the attack upon Savannah, on 
 the 19th of October, 1779, and his noble soul was about leaving its 
 earthly tenement, that he bequeathed this belt to his loved and 
 equally brave companion in arms, Colonel (then captain) Benta- 
 lou. The legion of Pulaski was raised, organized and disciplined 
 in Baltimore in the spring of 177S. At that period the country 
 generally was destitute, none of the fine or useful arts were culti- 
 vated — the whole energies of the people being bent on the war. 
 The army was poorly clad and badly fed — and in the absence of 
 more elegant materials or accomplished artists, the standard of 
 the legion was formed of a piece of crimson silk, and embroidered 
 by the Moldavian Nuns of Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania. On one side 
 are the initials U. S. with this motto — TJnita Virtus Fortior — ■ 
 on the reverse, the all seeing eye, surrounded with thirteen stars, 
 and the motto, Non alius regit. It may appear, as it certainly 
 is, a singular circumstance that the standard (first consecrated at 
 Baltimore when a small village), after having waved over the 
 greater part of the old thirteen states, should be returned to the 
 same place, now a large and important city, and there be perma- 
 nently enshrined." 
 
 Longfellow read this account, as copied in the North
 
 21S HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS 
 
 American Rcviciv, of which Jared Sparks was then edi- 
 tor, and thereupon wrote the poem, Hymn of the Mora- 
 vian Nuns of Bethlehem. 
 
 The banner is now the property of the Maryland His- 
 torical Society, Baltimore, which came into possession of 
 it in 1844. It is twenty inches square, and is much 
 faded and discolored by time. 
 
 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has the second oldest board- 
 ing school for girls in the United States (founded 1741), 
 the oldest being the Ursuline Academy in New Orleans 
 (founded 1727). It was at this Moravian Seminary in 
 Bethlehem that the Pulaski banner was made. Pulaski 
 is said to have ordered it when there on a visit to Lafay- 
 ette who lay sick at Bethlehem. 
 
 The banner did not, of course, become Pulaski's 
 "shroud," as the poem says, or it could not now be in 
 the historical cabinet in Baltimore. Pulaski was mor- 
 tally wounded in the attack upon Savannah, October 9, 
 1779. He was conveyed on the U. S. brig Wasp to be 
 taken round to Charleston, and died on the voyage. His 
 body was buried at sea. 
 
 This is the common account of his death and burial, 
 but Justin Winsor {Narrative and Critical History of 
 America, Vol. VI, p. 524) says that at the laying of a 
 corner-stone of a monument to his memory in Savannah, 
 a metallic box supposed to contain his remains was placed 
 within the plinth alongside the corner-stone. Further- 
 more, an aide-de-camp to Pulaski is quoted by Windsor 
 as saying that the remains were buried under a large 
 tree about fifty miles from Savannah. Whatever the fact
 
 OF BETHLEHEM 210 
 
 may be about his burial place, the banner is in Balti- 
 more — and a flag twenty inches square wouldn't make 
 much of a winding-sheet anyhow ! 
 
 The poem is one of Longfellow 's earliest — it was pub- 
 lished the year following his graduation from college — 
 and while it has some very obvious faults, it has been 
 widely popular, and deservedly so. If historical accu- 
 racy were an essential of poetry, this Hymn would be 
 lacking. The description of the chapel is that of a 
 Medieval Roman Catholic church, with its "glimmering 
 tapers," its "cowled head," its "burning censer," its 
 "dim mysterious aisle" and "the nuns' sweet hymn." 
 And then the spear and the lance had gone out of use 
 long before the days of the American Revolution. 
 
 It is easy to criticize the poem — just as it is easy to 
 criticize the Psalm of Life — but it early got into the 
 school readers and the public has always liked it. 
 
 HYMN OP THE MOILS.VIAN NUNS OF BETHLEHEM 
 At the Consecration of Pulaski's Banner. 
 
 When the dying flame of day 
 Through the chancel shot its ray, 
 Far the glimmering tapers shed 
 Faint light on the cowied head ; 
 And the censer burning swung, 
 "Where before the altar, hung 
 The crimson banner, that with prayer 
 Had been consecrated there.
 
 220 HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS 
 
 And the nuus' sweet hymn was heard the while, 
 Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle. 
 
 ' ' Take thy banner ! May it wave 
 Proudly o'er the good and brave; 
 When the battle's distant wail 
 Breaks the sabbath of our vale, 
 When the clarion's music thrills 
 To the hearts of these lone hills, 
 When the spear in conflict shakes, 
 And the strong lance shivering breaks. 
 
 ' Take thy banner ! and, beneath 
 The battle-cloud's encircling wreath, 
 Guard it, till our homes are free! 
 Guard it ! God will prosper thee ! 
 In the dark and trying hour. 
 In the brealdng forth of power. 
 In the rush of steeds and men, 
 His right hand will shield thee then. 
 
 ■ Take thy banner ! But when night 
 Closes round the ghastly fight, 
 If the vanquished warrior bow, 
 Spare him ! By our holy vow. 
 By our prayers and many tears, 
 By the mercy that endears, 
 Spare him! he our love hath shared! 
 Spare him ! as thou wouldst be spared !
 
 OF BETHLEHEM 221 
 
 "Take thy banner! and if e'er 
 Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, 
 And the muffled drum should beat 
 To the tread of mournful feet, 
 Then this crimson flag shall be 
 Martial cloak and shroud for thee." 
 
 The warrior took that banner proud, 
 And it was his martial cloak and shroud. 
 
 — Henry W. Longfellow.
 
 Ulysses 
 
 223
 
 ULYSSES 225 
 
 ULYSSES 
 
 Uhjsscs was the first poem to obtain for Tennyson offi- 
 cial recognition, and was one of the poems which drew 
 the attention of England to the young poet. In 1845, when 
 the question arose whether the vacant pension should 
 be given by the Government to Tennyson or to Sheridan 
 Knowles, Lord Houghton got Sir Robert Peel to read 
 Ulysses, whereupon the pension was granted to Tenny- 
 son. It was written soon after the death of Arthur Hal- 
 lam, the poet's much beloved friend, and Tennyson says 
 (in the If emmVs by his son) : '' Ulysses . . . gave my 
 feeling about the need of going forward, and braving 
 the struggle of life perhaps more simply than anything 
 in In Memoriam." "Ulysses," says Aubrey De Vere, 
 **. . . shows us what Heroism m.ay become in old 
 age, though sustained by little except the love of knowl- 
 edge, and the scorn of sloth. Carlyle said that it was 
 Ulysses which first convinced him that ' Tennyson was a 
 true poet. ' ' ' 
 
 Ulysses was king of Ithaca, an island on the west coast 
 of Greece, and was one of the noblest and most respected 
 of the heroes in the war against Troy, which lasted ten 
 years, and which was caused by the abduction of Helen 
 of Sparta by Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy. Helen 
 was the daughter of a king, the wife of a king, and the 
 most beautiful woman in the world. The story of the 
 siege of Troy is told in Homer's Iliad. Ulysses (whose 
 Greek name was Odysseus) was full of courage, perse- 
 verance, prudence and cunning, and had a large part in
 
 226 ULYSSES 
 
 the final fall of Troy. His adventures during the return 
 home from Troy and on his arrival in his native country 
 form the contents of the Odyssey of Homer. Ten years 
 of the most stirring adventure wore spent in reaching 
 home; and, according to the Homeric account, all of his 
 companions perished, and Ulysses alone reached his 
 native shores. There he found that more than a hun- 
 dred noble youths of Ithaca and the surrounding islands 
 had appeared as suitors for the hand of his wife Pe- 
 nelope, had persecuted his son Telemachus, and were 
 feasting and rioting upon the substance of the long- 
 absent king. Ulysses destroyed them and took posses- 
 sion of his home and his throne. Here the Homeric 
 story ends, except for a hint that Ulysses should again 
 travel, till he came to a place where men, seeing the oar 
 upon his shoulder, should take it for a winnowing-fan. 
 Then he was to turn again homewards and death, ever so 
 gentle, should come to him outworn in a happy old age, 
 and his people should be happy around him. In the 
 Inferno of Dante it is said that Ulysses, after returning 
 to Ithaca, again traveled with that little company by 
 which he was not deserted westwards to a great mountain 
 in the ocean beyond Gibraltar, where the ship foun- 
 dered and the sea closed over them. 
 
 In canto XXVI of the Inferno, lines 90-124 (John 
 Aitkcn Carlyle's translation), Ulysses is made to say: 
 
 "When I departed from Circe, who beyond a year de- 
 tained me there near Gaeta, ere Aeneas thus had named 
 it, neither fondness for my son, nor reverence for my 
 aged father, nor the due love that should have cheered 
 Penelope, could conquer in me the ardour that I had
 
 ULYSSES 227 
 
 to gain experience of the world, and of human vice and 
 worth; I put forth on the deep open sea, with but one 
 ship, and with that small company, which had not 
 deserted me. Both the shores I saw as far as Spain, far 
 as ilorocco ; and saw Sardinia and the other isles which 
 that sea bathes round. I and my companions were old 
 and tardy, when we came to that narrow pass, where 
 Hercules assigned his landmarks to hinder man from 
 venturing farther; on the right hand, I left Seville; on 
 the other, had already left Ceuta. '0 brothers,' I said, 
 'who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached 
 the West, deny not, to this the brief vigil of your senses 
 that remains, experience of the unpeopled world behind 
 the Sun. Consider your origin: ye were not formed to 
 live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.' 
 With this brief speech I made my companions so eager 
 for the voyage, that I could hardly then have checked 
 them." 
 
 Tennyson also represents Ulysses as calling together 
 the remnant of his old comrades and telling them that he 
 has decided to set forth upon new adventures and new 
 discoveries, and to sail beyond the sunset and the baths 
 of all the western stars, — that unknown western ocean 
 which his eager and inquiring spirit longed to explore. 
 The poem is in the Greek manner and characterized by 
 the Greek directness, simplicity and dignity. Many of 
 the phrases are direct from the Odyssey, among them 
 these — ''The ringing plains of windy Troy," "delight 
 of battle," "the dark, broad seas," "sitting well in order 
 smite the sounding furrows," "the baths of all the west- 
 ern stars," and "cities of men and manners"; and the
 
 228 ULYSSES 
 
 vsympatlietic reader fools that it is -a continuation of the 
 great Homeric story — and worthy to be. 
 
 The chief conception of the poem is the love of knowl- 
 edge and the love of experience, with the heroic deter- 
 mination to pursue them to the uttermost; this was 
 Ulysses' quest. He was always roaming with a hungry 
 heart, and he had seen much and experienced much, 
 but the more one knows the more the horizon of knowl- 
 edge widens ; and life piled on life were too little for one 
 to see and experience all. True, he is old and only three 
 or four years of life yet remain, but every hour may 
 bring some new thing, and he is determined to strive, to 
 seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 The lines are addressed to the men who have spent 
 twenty years with him — ten in the Trojan war and ten 
 in contending with the fates upon the return voyage to 
 Greece. 
 
 ULYSSES 
 
 It little profits that an idle king. 
 
 By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 
 
 Match 'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 
 
 Unequal laws unto a savage race. 
 
 That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 
 
 I cannot rest from travel : I will drink 
 
 Life to the lees : all times I have enjoy 'd 
 
 Matched vith an aped v:ife {Jine 3) — Penelope had waited faith- 
 fully for twenty years for his return ; his leaving her now is not 
 in harmony with modern ideas. 
 
 Vnci/udl hnrx (4) — his suhjeots were not sufBciently civilized 
 to be governed with general laws.
 
 ULYSSES 229 
 
 Greatly, have suffer 'd greatly, both with those 
 That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when 
 Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 10 
 
 Vext the dim sea : I am become a name ; 
 For always roaming with a hungry heart 
 Much have I seen and known ; cities of men 
 And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
 Myself not least, but honour 'd of them all; 15 
 
 And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 
 Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 
 I am a part of all that I have met ; 
 Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
 Gleams that untravell 'd world, whose margin fades 20 
 For ever and for ever when I move. 
 How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 To rust unburnish 'd, not to shine in use ! 
 As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 
 Were all too little, and of one to me 25 
 
 Little remains : but every hour is saved 
 From that eternal silence, something more, 
 A bringer of new things ; and vile it were 
 For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 
 And this gray spirit yearning in desire 30 
 
 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 
 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 
 This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
 
 Rainy Hijades (10) — a group of stars whose appearance was 
 supposed to portend rainv weather. 
 
 Whose margin fades vlO) — as the horizon can never be reached, 
 so the limits of knowledge can never be reached. 
 
 For some three suns (29) — for the three or four years of life 
 yet remaining. 
 
 This is mil son, etc. (33-34) — Telemachus is better fitted to rule 
 such a people than he is.
 
 230 ULYSSES 
 
 To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle — 
 Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 35 
 
 This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 
 A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
 Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
 Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
 Of eommon duties, decent not to fail 40 
 
 In offices of tenderness, and pay- 
 Meet adoration to my household gods. 
 When I am gone. He worhs his work, I mine. 
 There lies the port ; the vessel puffs her sail : 
 There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, 45 
 
 Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with 
 
 me — 
 That ever Avith a frolic welcome took 
 The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
 Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old ; 
 Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; 50 
 
 Death closes all : but something ere the end, 
 Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
 Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. 
 The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks : 
 
 Botils that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought mth me (4G) — E. 
 C. E. Owen, a former Fellow of New College, Oxford, says : "The 
 long line, with its pairs of monosyllables and repetition of similar 
 syllables, seems to measure out tbe long years of labors shared to- 
 gether" ; and of line 5.", the long day tvancs: the slow moon climbs; 
 etc., he says : "Another line consisting entirely of monosyllables, 
 suggesting the slow movement of time to one in haste to bo gone, 
 ■with so much to be done, and so little time left in which to do it." 
 
 That strove uith gods (."(3) — The gods are represented as hav- 
 ing taken part, on one side or the other, in the slego of Troy, and 
 also as having interfered with or helped Ulysses and his mariners 
 upon their rttura journey.
 
 ULYSSES 231 
 
 The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the deep 55 
 
 Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
 
 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 
 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 60 
 
 Of all the western stars, until I die. 
 
 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
 
 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
 
 Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 65 
 
 We are not now that strength which in old days 
 
 Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; 
 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 70 
 
 — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 Kead Tennyson's The Lotus-Eafers as a contrast to 
 Ulysses. 
 
 Of lines 62-64, Carlyle said, "These lines do not make 
 me weep, but there is in me v/hat would fill whole Lach- 
 rymatories as I read." 
 
 The latlis of all the xcestern stars (60) — the Greeks believed that 
 the stars revolved round the earth, and in setting sunii into the 
 western sea. 
 
 The happy Isles (63) — The abode of the blessed after death, at the 
 western extremity of the earth. The Elysian Fields were there. 
 
 Achilles (64) — the greatest of the Grecli warriors at the siege of Troy.
 
 Ode on the Death of the Duke of 
 Wellington 
 
 233
 
 THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 235 
 
 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF 
 AVELLI'NGTON 
 
 Au ode is a "strain of enthusiastic and exalted lyrical 
 verse, directed to a fixed purpose and dealing progres- 
 sively with one dignified theme." Its chief purpose 
 often is to honor some great personage, real or fictitious, 
 or to celebrate some important occasion. Tennyson's 
 great ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington, pub- 
 lished on the day of the funeral, admirably illustrates 
 this definition. Its purpose was to express the feelings 
 of the empire, for Tennyson was the laureate of the 
 nation and spoke in its name rather than in his own. 
 
 The funeral of the Duke of Wellington (1852) was 
 perhaps the most imposing in all English history. A 
 million and a half people watched the procession through 
 Piccadilly, the Strand, Fleet Street, and up Ludgate 
 Hill to St. Paul's Cathedral ''in streaming London's 
 central roar. ' ' Representatives of every army in Europe 
 and of every regiment in the British service attended. 
 The funeral car, drawn by six horses richly caparisoned, 
 was constructed from guns taken in battles in which 
 Wellington was engaged ; the names of his victories were 
 inscribed in gold letters on the ear. The great bell of 
 St. Paul's, which is tolled only at the death of members 
 of the royal family or great dignitaries of the church, 
 was tolled as a special honor. Wellington's titles, occu- 
 pying thirty-seven printed lines in the official register, 
 were read above his coffin — evidences of that ''lavish 
 honor" which Tennyson speaks of which the nations of
 
 '>.^G ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 Europe delighted to bestow upon him. In that long list 
 of titles were : Viscount Wellington and Baron Douro, 
 Marshal-General of the Portugese Array, Count of Vi- 
 meiro, Duke Ciudad Rodrigo, Earl of Wellington, Duke 
 of Verona, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Golden 
 Fleece, Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Armies, 
 Duke of Wellington, Prince of Waterloo, Commander of 
 the International Army of Europe, Ambassador to 
 Vienna, Ambassador to Paris, Prime Minister of Eng- 
 land, Master-General of the Ordnance, Commander-in- 
 Chief of the English Armies, Ranger of Hyde Park and 
 St. James Park, Field Marshal in the Austrian, Russian, 
 and Prussian Armies, Governor of Plymouth, Constable 
 of the Tower, Lord High Constable of England, First 
 Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the University of 
 Oxford, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Duke of 
 Vittoria. Was ever mortal man in modern times so 
 honored? "He on whom from both her open hands 
 Lavish Honor showered all her stars. ' ' 
 
 "Affluent Fortune had" also "emptied all her horn" 
 upon his head. He was first given a pension of £2,000 a 
 year after the battle of Talavera, then a further pension 
 of £2,000 a year v.hen he was created Earl of Wellington, 
 later a grant of £100,000, later a further pension, re- 
 ceived £60,000 as Waterloo prize-money, a further grant 
 of £400,000, another of £200,000, was presented by the 
 British nation with an estate costing £263,000 and with a 
 house in London. The nation voted £80,000 for his fune- 
 ral, and a grateful people subscribed £100,000 to found 
 as a national memorial Wellington College for the educa- 
 tion of sons of officers.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 237 
 
 It is interesting to remember that this great general 
 who saved England from France, and Europe from Na- 
 poleon, was an Irishman, and that he received his mili- 
 tary training in a French military school — such is the 
 irony of history. The story of his life from the time of 
 his birth as Arthur "Wesley (Wellesley) in County 
 Meath, Ireland, in 1769, through his East Indian and 
 European campaigns, culminating in Waterloo, his 
 career in Parliament, when his opposition to liberal meas- 
 ures brought upon him the hoots of the crowds and per- 
 sonal assaults, to the day when at 83 he was laid by the 
 side of Nelson, the great Admiral, under the dome and 
 the gold cross of St. Paul's and all his titles read, may 
 be found in any encyclopedia. Tennyson refers to some 
 of his famous battles — Assaye, Lisbon, Vittoria, "Water- 
 loo. 
 
 History illuminates poetry, and poetry is the interpre- 
 tation of history. 
 
 Lord Nelson, who, in lines 80 and 81, at the opening 
 of the 6th canto, is made to inquire : 
 
 Who is he that cometh, like an honored guest, 
 
 With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest, 
 
 With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? 
 
 was England's greatest seaman. His great victories were 
 the battle of the Nile, the battle of Copenhagen, and the 
 battle of Trafalgar, where he was killed, 1805. He was 
 buried in St. Paul's and his funeral was the most mag- 
 nificent that had ever been seen up to that time in Eng- 
 land. The great soldier and the great seaman lie side by 
 side ; their foes were the same — the French. The great 
 monument in London 's central square — Trafalgar 
 Square — is to Nelson's memory.
 
 238 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE POEM 
 
 The ode opens with a movement which Professor Alden 
 calls "almost lawless," which Morton Luce calls "a few 
 bars of prose rather than verse," and which Dr. Van 
 Dyke thinks is designed to suggest the surging of the 
 crowd through the streets of London, before the entrance 
 into the cathedral for the funeral. Section three repre- 
 sents the funeral march. Luce thinks that the first three 
 short divisions are merely the mutterings, as we may say, 
 of the rising storm of emotion, which reaches its climax 
 in the centre of the poem when Nelson rises from his 
 tomb to welcome this last great Englishman. 
 
 Stanza 4 is an amplification of the thought in the last 
 line of Stanza 3. Wellington's qualities as a soldier, 
 statesman, and man are set forth : he was long-enduring, 
 moderate, resolute, whole in himself like King Arthur, 
 clear of ambition or pretense, rich in common sense, sub- 
 lime in his simplicity. And now he lies like a shattered 
 column, and the victor of Napoleon, the great world-vic- 
 tor, will be seen no more. 
 
 In Stanza 5 the body is committed to the grave, ren- 
 dered back to the mould. The dignified and solemn 
 iambic lines represent with great efi'ectiveness the tolling 
 of the bells of St. Paul 's and the thundering of the can- 
 non in the Tower of London. Tennyson's wonderful 
 technical skill is 'here displayed in the use of the long o's 
 in describing the tolling of the great bell ; also in the 
 "boom" and "doom" of the "bellowing" cannon. 
 
 At the opening of Stanza 6, the spirit of Nelson in-
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 239 
 
 quires wlio this is that comes with banner and with 
 music and with a nation weeping and breaks on his rest 
 in the tomb. With lines solemn and slow, like the 
 muffled music of a funeral march, the answer begins. 
 Then Wellington's great deeds in India and the Penin- 
 sula, his victory over Napoleon, ''the Ravening Eagle," 
 on that Sabbath day in June, are narrated in stirring 
 trochaic lines with the quick rush of battle. The choral 
 chant of the people in the cathedral closes the stanza 
 with "honor, honor, honor, honor to him, eternal honor 
 to his name." 
 
 Tennyson 's view of freedom is given in the first half of 
 the next stanza, and Wellington is described as the em- 
 bodiment of that idea. Tennyson believed in progress 
 through law and order. He was a conservative. He 
 hated "brainless mobs" and called the French Revolu- 
 tion "the red fool-fury of the Seine." Neither he nor 
 Wellington had any sympathy with the rising tide of 
 noisy reformers, but they believed in a "sober freedom" 
 out of which springs "our loyal passion for our tem- 
 perate kings." To preserve this freedom, the country 
 must heed the advioe of him who bade them guard their 
 coasts — the advice of him whose whole life was a rebuke 
 to all self-seekers. 
 
 The dominant strain of Stanza 8 is that the path of 
 duty is the way to glory. The great Duke followed this 
 path, and from her open hands lavish Honor showered 
 all her stars upon him and affluent Fortune emptied her 
 horn of plenty. Thus often has it been in England's story 
 that the path of duty was the way to glory. Nelson's 
 last signal at Trafalgar was, "England expects every
 
 240 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 man to do his duty," and his dying words were, "Thank 
 God, I have done my duty. ' ' Trochaic lines of different 
 lengths and solemn iambics are happily mingled in this 
 stanza to create the impression desired. 
 
 In the closing stanza the emotion of the poem dies 
 gradually away in a requiem and farewell. The dirge of 
 the Dead March in Saul wails in the people's ears; ashes 
 to ashes, dust to dust; God accept him, Christ receive 
 him. 
 
 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 
 1 
 
 Bury the Great Duke 
 
 With an empire's lamentation, 
 Let us bury the Great Duke 
 
 To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
 ]\Iourning when their leaders fall, 5 
 
 Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
 And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 
 
 Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? 
 
 Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
 
 Let the sound of those he wrought for, 10 
 
 And the feet of those he fought for, 
 
 Echo round his bones for evermore. 
 
 "Warriors carry the warrior's pall (line 6) — Eight eminent army 
 officers acted as pall-bearers. 
 
 In streaming London's central roar (9) — St. Paul's is near the 
 Bank of England and the Exchange, and is in the centre of the 
 traffic of London.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 211 
 
 3 
 
 Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 
 
 As fits an universal woe, 
 
 Let the long long procession go, 15 
 
 And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 
 
 And let the mournful martial music blow ; 
 
 The last great Englishman is low. 
 
 Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
 
 Bememberiug all his greatness in the Past. 20 
 
 No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
 
 With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
 
 friends, our chief state-oracle is mute : 
 
 Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
 
 The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 25 
 
 "Whole in himself, a common good. 
 
 Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
 
 Yet clearest of ambitious crime. 
 
 Our greatest yet with least pretence. 
 
 Great in council and great in war, 30 
 
 Foremost captain of his time, 
 
 Eich in saving common-sense. 
 
 And, as the greatest only are, 
 
 In his simplicity sublime. 
 
 O good gray head which all men knew, 35 
 
 O voice from which their omens all men drew. 
 
 O voice from which their omrnfi all men drew (36) — 'After the 
 battle of Waterloo, Wellington was the most influential personality in 
 all the world.
 
 242 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 iron nerve to true occasion true, 
 
 fall 'n at length that tower of strength 
 
 Which stood four-square to all the wincb that blev/ ! 
 
 Such Avas he whom we deplore. 40 
 
 The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 
 
 The great World- victor 's victor will be seen no more. 
 
 All is over and done ; 
 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 
 England, for thy son. 45 
 
 Let the bell be toU'd. 
 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 
 And render him to the mould. 
 
 Under the cross of gold 
 
 That shines over city and river, 50 
 
 There he shall rest for ever 
 
 Among the wuse and the bold, 
 
 Let the bell be toll'd: 
 
 And a reverent people behold 
 
 The towering car, the sable steeds : 55 
 
 Bright let it be with its blazon 'd deeds. 
 
 Dark in its funeral fold. 
 
 Let the bell be toll'd: 
 
 And a deeper knell in che heart be knoll 'd ; 
 
 And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll 'd 60 
 
 O iron nerve (37) — Wellington was known as the "Iron Duke." 
 Under the cross 0} f/oht (40) — The cross of St. Taul's. 
 lirifjht let it be, etc. (50) — Wellington's victories Inscribed in gold 
 letters on the funeral car.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 213 
 
 Thro ' the dome of the golden cross ; 
 
 And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 
 
 He knew their voices of old. 
 
 For many a time in many a clime 
 
 His captain 's-ear has heard them boom 65 
 
 Bellowing victory, bellowing doom. 
 
 When he with those deep voices wrought, 
 
 Guarding realms and kings from shame, 
 
 With those deep voices our dead captain taught 
 
 The tyrant, and asserts his claim 70 
 
 In that dread sound to the great name 
 
 Which he has worn so pure of blame, 
 
 In praise and in dispraise the same, 
 
 A man of well-attemper 'd frame. 
 
 civic muse, to such a name, 75 
 
 To such a name for ages long, 
 
 To such a name, 
 
 Preserve a broad approach of fame, 
 
 And ever-echoing avenues of song ! 
 
 "Who is he that eometh, like an honour 'd guest, 80 
 
 With banner and with music, with soldier and with 
 
 priest. 
 With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest?"— 
 Mighty Seaman, this is he 
 Was great by land as thou by sea. 
 
 Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 85 
 
 The greatest sailor since our world began. 
 
 The voUeijing cannon (62) — The minuto-giins fired at his funeral.
 
 244 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 
 
 To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 
 
 For this is he 
 
 Was great by land as thou by sea — 90 
 
 His foes were thine ; he kept us free ; 
 
 give him welcome, this is he 
 
 Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
 
 And worthy to be laid by thee ; 
 
 For this is England's greatest son, 95 
 
 He that gain'd a hundred fights, 
 
 Nor ever lost an English gun ; 
 
 This is he that far away 
 
 Against the mjTiads of Assaye 
 
 Clash 'd with his fiery few and won ; 100 
 
 And underneath another sun. 
 
 Warring on a later day, 
 
 Round affrighted Lisbon drew 
 
 The treble works, the vast designs 
 
 Of his labour 'd rampart-lines, 105 
 
 Where he greatly stood at bay, 
 
 Whence he issued forth anew. 
 
 And ever great and greater grew, 
 
 Beating from the wasted vines 
 
 Back to France her banded swarms, 110 
 
 Back to France with countless blows, 
 
 Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 
 
 Past the Pyrenean pines, 
 
 Follow 'd up in valley and glen 
 
 With blare of bugle, clamour of men, 115 
 
 wasted vinrs (109) — Spanish vineyards — and Spain herself — de- 
 vastated by the French armies.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 245 
 
 Roll of cannon and clash of arms, 
 
 And England pouring on her foes. 
 
 Such a war had such a close. 
 
 Again their ravening eagle rose 
 
 In anger, wheel 'd on Europe-shadowing wings, 120 
 
 And barking for the thrones of kings ; 
 
 Till one that sought but Duty 's iron crown 
 
 On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down ; 
 
 A day of onsets of despair ! 
 
 Dash'd on every rocky square 125 
 
 Their surging charges foam'd themselves away; 
 
 Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; 
 
 Thro' the long-tormented air 
 
 Heaven flash 'd a sudden jubilant ray. 
 
 And down we swept and charged and overthrew. 130 
 
 So great a soldier taught us there, 
 
 What long-enduring hearts could do 
 
 In that world's earthquake, Waterloo! 
 
 Mighty seaman, tender and true, 
 
 And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 135 
 
 saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 
 
 shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 
 
 Again their ravening eagle (119) — Referring to Napoleon after his 
 escape from Elba. 
 
 Duty's iron crown (122) — Napoleon was crowned with the Iron 
 Crown of Lombardy. 
 
 That loud Sabhath (123) — Waterloo was fought on Sunday, June 
 18. 1815. 
 
 mighty seamen, tender and true (134) — Before the battle of the 
 Baltic, Nelson wrote a prayer in which he prayed that the British arms 
 might be distinguished not only for victory but for humanity. 
 
 The silve-r-coasted isle (136) — The white chalk cliflfs of the southern 
 coast of England. 
 
 Shaker of the Baltic (137) — Lord Nelson.
 
 246 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 If aught of things that here befall 
 
 Touch a spirit among things divine, 
 
 If love of country move thee there at all, 140 
 
 Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine! 
 
 And thro ' the centuries let a people 's voice 
 
 In full acclaim, 
 
 A people 's voice, 
 
 The proof and echo of all human fame, 145 
 
 A people's voice, when they rejoice 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 
 Attest their great commander 's claim 
 
 With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 
 
 Eternal honour to his name. 150 
 
 A people 's voice ! we are a people yet. 
 
 Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, 
 
 Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers, 
 
 Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
 
 His Briton in blown seas and storming showers, 155 
 
 We have a voice with which to pay the debt 
 
 Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
 
 To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
 
 And keep it ours, God, from brute control ! 
 
 Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 160 
 
 Of Europe, keep our noble England whole. 
 
 And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
 
 Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 
 
 Jaulc.ts rowers (153) — referring to insurrections in Austria and 
 Italy and revolutions ia Spain, Toland, and Iluugarj', following the 
 French Kcvolution.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 247 
 
 That sober freedom out of which there springs 
 
 Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ! 165 
 
 For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
 
 Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
 
 And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 
 
 Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just, 
 
 But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 170 
 
 Remember him who led your hosts ; 
 
 He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 
 
 Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 
 
 His voice is silent in your council-hall 
 
 For ever ; and whatever tempests lour 175 
 
 For ever silent ; even if they broke 
 
 In thunder, silent ; yet remember all 
 
 He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; 
 
 Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
 
 Nor palter 'd with Eternal God for power; 180 
 
 Who let the turbid streams of rumour How ; 
 
 Thro ' either babbling world of high and low ; 
 
 Whose life was work, whose language rife 
 
 With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
 
 Who never spoke against a foe ; 185 
 
 Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
 
 All great self-seekers trampling on the right : 
 
 Truth-teller was our England 's Alfred named ; 
 
 Truth-lover was our English Duke ; 
 
 Whatever record leap to light 190 
 
 He never shall be shamed. 
 
 temperate kings (1G5) — a limitecl monarchy. 
 
 He lade you guard, etc. (172) — Wellington had recommended, in 
 184S, the fortiflcalion of the Channel Islands and some of the towns 
 on the southern coast of England.
 
 248 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 8 
 
 Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 
 
 Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
 
 Follow 'd by the brave of other lands, 
 
 He, on whom from both her open hands 195 
 
 Lavish Ilonour shower 'd all her stars, 
 
 And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 
 
 Yea, let all good things await 
 
 Him who cares not to be great. 
 
 But as he saves or serves the state. 200 
 
 Not once or twice in our rough island-story 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 
 Love of self, before his journey closes, 205 
 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 
 All voluptuous garden-roses. 
 
 Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 210 
 
 He, that ever following her commands, 
 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands. 
 
 Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 
 
 His path upward, and prevail 'd. 
 
 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 215 
 
 Are close upon the shining table-lands 
 
 The trave 0/ other lands (194) — Seven foreign armies were repre- 
 eented at the funeral. 
 
 Fortune emptied all her horn (197) — Fortuna, the Roman goddess, 
 Is represented as holding In her hand the "cornucopia" or horn of 
 plenty. 
 
 2fot once or twice (201) — many times.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 249 
 
 To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 
 
 Such was he : his work is done. 
 
 But while the races of mankind endure 
 
 Let his great example stand 220 
 
 Colossal, seen of every land, 
 
 And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ; 
 
 Till in all lands and thro ' all human story 
 
 The path of duty be the way to glory. 
 
 And let the land whose hearths he saved from 225 
 
 shame 
 For many and many an age proclaim 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 And when the long-illumined cities flame, 
 Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 
 With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 230 
 
 Eternal honour to his name. 
 
 Peace, his triumph will be sung 
 
 By some yet unmoulded tongue 
 
 Far on in summers that we shall not see. 
 
 Peace, it is a day of pain 235 
 
 For one about whose patriarchal knee 
 
 Late the little children clung. 
 
 peace, it is a day of pain 
 
 For one upon whose hand and heart and brain 
 
 Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 240 
 
 The land whose hearths he saved from shame (225) — He prevented 
 the French from invading England. 
 For (236 and 239) —On account of.
 
 250 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE 
 
 Ours the pain, be his the gain! 
 
 More than is of man's degree 
 
 Must be with us, watching here 
 
 At this, our great solemnity. 
 
 Whom we see not we revere ; 245 
 
 We revere, and we refrain 
 
 From talk of battles loud and vain, 
 
 And brawling memories all too free 
 
 For such a wise humility 
 
 As befits a solemn fane : 250 
 
 We revere, and while we hear 
 
 The tides of Music's golden sea 
 
 Setting toward eternity, 
 
 Uplifted high in heart and hope are we. 
 
 Until we doubt not that for one so true 255 
 
 There must be other nobler work to do 
 
 Than when he fought at Waterloo, 
 
 And Victor he must ever be. 
 
 For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
 
 And break the shore, and evermore 260 
 
 Make and break, and work their will ; 
 
 Tho ' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 
 Round us, each with different powers. 
 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 265 
 
 On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
 
 Brawlinrj memories (248) — Welllngton'R opposition to tho Rpform 
 Bill of 18.32 aroused intensely bitter feeling against him among tlio 
 people. But Anally, in order to prevent civil war, he with many 
 other peers absented themselves from the Ilouse of Lords and thus 
 permitted the Reform Bill to become law.
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 251 
 
 Hush, tbc Bead March wails in the people's ears: 
 
 The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears : 
 
 The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears ; 
 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; 270 
 
 He is gone who seemed so great. — 
 
 Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 
 
 Of the force he made his own 
 
 Being here, and we believe him 
 
 Something far advanced in State, 275 
 
 And that he wears a truer crown 
 
 Than any wreath that man can weave him. 
 
 But speak no more of his renown, 
 
 Lay your earthly fancies down, 
 
 And in the vast cathedral leave him, 280 
 
 God accept him, Christ receive him. 
 
 — Alfred Lord Tennyson. 
 
 The sorroxi-ino anthem (CO) — and the Dead March (2G7) — "The 
 music at St. Paul's included the 'Nunc Uimittis' of Beethoven ; a dirge 
 by Mr. Goss, the organist ; the 'Dead March' in Saul ; an anthem from 
 Mendelssohn's 'St. Taul' ; and other music by Croft and Purcell. 
 When the service ended, the Tower guns began to boom." E. A. J. 
 Marsh. 
 
 Tennyson wrote this ode during the time between the 
 death of Wellington, September 14, 1852, and the day 
 of the Duke's funeral, November 18. 
 
 Wordsworth's Ode to Duty should be read in connec- 
 tion with stanza VIII.
 
 The Lady of Shalott 
 
 253
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 255 
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 
 Any attempt to explain The Lady of Shaloit may seem 
 to be a wholly needless enterprise. Perhaps, as Profes- 
 sor MacMechan says, ' ' the part of wisdom is to listen like 
 a three-year child" to this strange and lovely story of a 
 far-off age. And yet Tennyson himself said it had a 
 meaning deeper than that of a fairy story. In the 
 Memoirs by his son occurs this passage : 
 
 "The key to this tale of magic symbolism is of deep 
 human significance; and is to be found in the lines : 
 
 Or when the moon was overhead 
 Came two young lovers lately wed ; 
 *I am half sick of shadows,' said 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 "Canon Ainger in his Tennyson for the Young quotes 
 the following interpretation given by my father: 
 
 " 'The newborn love for something, for some one in 
 the wide world from which she has been so long secluded, 
 takes her out of the region of shadows into that of reali- 
 ties.' " 
 
 The poem might be called The Soul's Awakening. 
 
 Stopford Brooke's comment on the poem is in harmony 
 with Tennyson's own explanation. He says: 
 
 "WTiat a secluded maid sees are but pictures, but the hour 
 comes when she says, 'I am half sick of shadows.' To know that 
 the pictures of the mind are shadows is to be wild to seek reality. 
 Then if love comes, hopeless love, all the world of mere phantasy 
 breaks up, and the actual kills. If there be any meaning at all in 
 this piece of gossamer fancy, that is it, and like all Tennyson's 
 meanings, it is as simple as day."
 
 256 THE LADY OF SIIALOTT 
 
 Another symbolic interpretation sometimes given of 
 this poem is that "it shadows forth the relations which 
 poetic genius should sustain to the world for whose 
 spiritual redemption it labors, and the fatal consequence 
 of its being seduced by the world's temptation — the lust 
 of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride 
 life." But those who like this reading of its meaning 
 are welcome to it. 
 
 The legend is a very old one, and appears in many 
 versions. Tennyson's poem is said to be based upon an 
 Italian romance, but his later poem of Lancelot and 
 Elaine, dealing with the same theme, is based upon Mal- 
 ory's iliori d' Arthur, book XVIII, chapters 9-20, in 
 which is told how Elaine, the Fair ]\Iaid of Astolat, falls 
 in love with Sir Lancelot, and dies for love of him : 
 
 "Now speak we of the fair maiden of Astolat, that made such 
 sorrow day and night, that she never slept, cat, nor drank ; and 
 ever she made her complaint unto Sir Launcelot. So when she 
 had thus endured a ten days, that she feebled so that she must 
 needs pass out of this world, then she shrived her clean, and re- 
 ceived her Creator. And ever she complained still upon Sir 
 Launcelot. Then her ghostly father bade her leave such thoughts. 
 Then she said. Why should I leave such thoughts? am I not an 
 earthly woman? and all the while the breath is in my body I may 
 complain me, for my belief is I do none offense, though I love an 
 earthly man, and I take God to my record, I never loved none but 
 Sir Launcelot du Lake, nor never shall ; and a pure maiden I am 
 for him and for all other. And since it is the suflferauce of God 
 that I shall die for the love of so noble a knight, I beseach the 
 High Father of heaven to have mercy upon my soul, and upon 
 mine innumerable pains that I suffered may be allegianced of part 
 of my sins. For sweet Lord Jesu, said the fair maiden, I take thee 
 to record, on thee I was never great offender against thy laws, but 
 that I loved this noble Lord Sir Launcelot out of measure, and of 
 myself, good Lord, I might not withstand the fervent love wherefor 
 I have my death. And then she called her father Sir Bernard, 
 and her brother Sir I'irre, and heartily she i)rayed her father that 
 her brother might write a letter like as she did endite it ; and so her
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 257 
 
 father granted her. And M'hen the letter was written word by 
 word like as she devised, then she prayed her father that she 
 might be watched until she were dead, — And while my body is hot, 
 let this letter be put in my right hand, and my hand bound fast 
 to the letter until that I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed, 
 with all the richest clothes that I have about me, and so let my 
 bed, and all my richest clothes, be laid with me in a chariot unto 
 the next place where Thames is, and there let me be put within a 
 barget, and but one man with me, such as you trust to steer me 
 thither, and that my barget be covered with black samite, over and 
 over. Thus, father, I beseach you let it be done. So her father 
 granted it her faithfully all things should be done like as she had 
 devised. Then her father and her brother made great dole, for, 
 when this was done, anon she died. And so when she was dead, 
 the corpse, and the bed, all was led the next way unto Thames 
 and there a man, and the corpse, and all, were put into Thames, 
 and so the man steered the barget unto Westminster, and there he 
 rowed a great while or any espied it. . . . 
 
 "Then the king made the barget to be holden fast; and then 
 the king and the queen entered, with certain knights with them. 
 And there he saw the fairest woman lie in a rich bed, covered 
 unto her middle with many rich clothes, and all was of cross of 
 gold, and she lay as though she had smiled. Tlien the queen espied 
 a letter in her right hand, and told it to the king. Theia the king 
 took it, and said. Now I am sure this letter will tell what she was, 
 and why she is come hither. Then the king and the queen went 
 out of the barget, and so commanded a certain man to wait upon 
 the barget. And so when the king was come within his chamber, 
 he called many knights about him, and said that he would wit 
 openly what was written within that letter. Then the king break it, 
 and made a clerk to read it ; and this was the intent of the letter : — 
 Most noble knight. Sir Launcelot, now hath death made us two at 
 debate for your love ; I was your lover, that men called the fair 
 maiden of Astolat ; therefore unto all ladies I make my moan ; yet 
 pray for my soul, and bury me at the least, and offer ye my mass- 
 penny. This is my last request. And a clean maiden I died, I take 
 God to witness. Pray for my soul Sir Launcelot as thou art peer- 
 less. — This was all the substance in the letter. And when it was 
 read, the king, the queen, and all the knights wept for pity of the 
 doleful complaints. Then was Sir Launcelot sent foi*. And when 
 he was come. King Arthur made the letter to be read to him; 
 and when Sir Launcelot heard it word by word, he said. My Lord 
 Arthur, wit ye well I am right heavy of the death of this fair 
 damsel. God knoweth I was never causer of her death by my 
 willing, and that I will report me to her own brother ; here he is. Sir 
 Levaine. I will not say nay said Sir Launcelot, but that she was
 
 258 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 
 both fair and good, and much I was beholden unto her, but she 
 loved me out of measure. . . . 
 
 "Then said the king unto Sir Launcelot, It will be your worship 
 that j'e oversee that she be interred worshipfully. Sir, said Sir 
 Launcelot, that shall be done as I can best devise. And so many 
 knights went hither to behold that fair maiden. And so upon the 
 morn she was interred richly, and Sir Launcelot offered her mass- 
 penny, and all the knights of the Table Round that were there at 
 that time offered with Sir Launcelot." 
 
 The careful student of The Lady of Shalott will dis- 
 cover a number of details to deepen his interest: the 
 magic web, common in both Greek and northern mythol- 
 ogy; the broken mirror, to which an evil omen is at- 
 tached in many parts of the world ; the burial-ship, bear- 
 ing the dead to sea, which was not an uncommon custom 
 among the Vikings; the three paces, a common supersti- 
 tion to ward off misfortune ; the castle-ruins and crumb- 
 ling towers, emblems of decay ; the funeral and the wed- 
 ding — death and love — together, which made the Lady 
 say that she was sick of shadows. Notice, too, that the 
 movement is doivn to Camelot: Fate, the river, and all 
 upon the banks of the river, move downward together. 
 And still they move in the imagination of every reader, 
 though the fairy Lady has passed these hundred years. 
 "God in his mercy lend her grace." 
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 
 Part 1 
 
 On either side the river lie 
 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 
 That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 250 
 
 And throiigli the field the road runs by 
 
 To many-tower 'd Camelot ; 5 
 
 And up and down the people go, 
 Gazing where the lilies blow 
 Round an island there below, 
 The island of Shalott. 
 
 Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 10 
 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver 
 Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
 By the island in the river 
 
 Flowdng down to Camelot. 
 Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 15 
 
 Overlook a space of flowers, 
 And the silent isle imbowers 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 By the margin, willow-veiled, 
 
 Slide the heavy barges trailed 20 
 
 By slow horses ; and unbailed 
 
 The shallop flitteth silken-sailed, 
 
 Skimming down to Camelot: 
 But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
 Or at the casement seen her stand? 25 
 
 Or is she known in all the land, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott? 
 
 Only reapers, reaping early 
 In among the bearded barley. 
 
 Camelot (5) — The city of Arthur's court, probably the village of 
 Queen Camel, in Somersetshire. Notice that Malory has Winchester 
 instead of Camelot.
 
 260 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 
 Hear a song tliat echoes cheerly 30 
 
 From the river winding clearly, 
 
 Down to towered Camelot : 
 And by the moon the reaper weary, 
 Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
 Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy 35 
 
 Lady of Shalott." 
 
 Part 2 
 
 There she weaves by night and day 
 
 A magic web with colours gay. 
 
 She has heard a whisper say 
 
 A curse is on her if she stay 40 
 
 To look down to Camelot. 
 iShe knows not what the curse may be, 
 And so she weaveth steadily, 
 And little other care hath she, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 45 
 
 And moving thro ' a mirror clear. 
 That hangs before her all the year. 
 Shadows of the world appear: 
 There she sees the highway near. 
 
 Winding down to Camelot; 50 
 
 There the river eddy whirls, 
 And there the surly village-churls. 
 
 Thro' a mirror clear, etc. {line 4G) — "The mirror, which always 
 stood behind the tapestry, whose face was turned to the glass, so 
 that the worker could see the effect of her stitches without moving 
 from her seat. Every view which the early part of the poem presents 
 is cast upon the mirror" — Arthur Waugh in Life of Tennyson. 
 
 shadows of the world (48) — indistinct reflections of the busy 
 world OQ the banks of the river.
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 261 
 
 And the red cloaks of market girls, 
 Pass onward from Shalott. 
 
 Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, 55 
 
 An abbot on an ambling pad, 
 
 Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, 
 
 Or long-haired page in crimson clad, 
 
 Goes by to towered Gamelot; 
 And sometimes thro' the mirror blue 60 
 
 The knights come riding two and two : 
 She hath no loyal knight and true, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 But in her web she still delights 
 
 To weave the mirror's magic sights, 65 
 
 For often thro ' the silent nights 
 A funeral, with plumes and lights 
 
 And music, went to Gamelot; 
 Or when the moon was overhead, 
 Came two young lovers lately wed : 70 
 
 * * I am half sick of shadows, ' ' said 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Part 3 
 
 A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, 
 
 He rode between the barley-sheaves ; 
 
 The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 75 
 
 And flamed upon the brazen greaves
 
 262 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 
 Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
 A red-cross knight for ever kneeled 
 To a lady in his shield, 
 That sparkled on the yellow field, 80 
 
 Beside remote Shalott. 
 
 The gemmy bridle glitter 'd free, 
 
 Like to some branch of stars we see 
 
 Hung in the golden Galaxy, 
 
 The bridle bells rang merrily 85 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot ; 
 And from his blazon 'd baldric slung 
 A mighty silver bugle hung, 
 And as he rode his armour rung, 
 
 Beside remote Shallot. 90 
 
 All in the blue unclouded weather 
 Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, 
 The helmet and the helmet-feather 
 Burn'd like one burning flame together, 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot ; 95 
 
 As often thro' the purple night. 
 Below the starry clusters bright, 
 Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 
 
 Moves over still Shalott. 
 
 J)old Sir Lancelot (77) — Lancelot, the chief knight of Arthur's 
 court, was famous for his strength, chivalrj-. and romclincss. In 
 discussing the attention given in the middle ages to dress and armour, 
 Ruskln says, "Of all the beautiful things which the eyes of mea 
 could fall upon, in the world about them, the most beautiful must 
 have been a young knight riding out in the morning sunshine, and in 
 faithful hope." Such a picture, Tennyson draws of Lancelot in 
 part III of this poem.
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 263 
 
 His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; 100 
 
 On burnish 'd hooves his war-horse trode; 
 From underneath his helmet flow 'd 
 His coal-black curls as on he rode, 
 
 As he rode down to Caraelot. 
 From the bank and from the river 105 
 
 He flash 'd into the crystal mirror, 
 "Tirra lirra," by the river 
 
 Sang Sir Lancelot. 
 
 She left the web, she left the loom, 
 
 She made three paces thro' the room, 110 
 
 She saw the water-lily bloom, 
 
 She saw the helmet and the plume, 
 
 She look'd down to Camelot. 
 Out flew the web and floated wide; 
 The mirror crack 'd from side to side; 115 
 
 "The curse is come upon me," cried 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Part 4 
 
 In the stormy east-wind straining, 
 The pale yellow woods were waning, 
 
 In the stormy east-tcind straining (118) — All readers will notice 
 of course not only the change of seasons from midsummer to autumn 
 but a corresponding change of meter and of "tone-color" in the poem, 
 but Rowe and Webb point out a significant similarity In Milton's 
 Paradise Lost, when Adam and Eve had transgressed the command 
 on which their happiness depended. Milton describes nature as mourn- 
 ing over their fall : 
 
 Sky loured, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops 
 Wept at completing of the mortal Sin. 
 
 Was the Lady of Shalott another Eve who suffered death because 
 she disobeyed the demand not to taste the fruit of the Tree of 
 Knowledge ?
 
 264 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 
 The broad stream in his banks complaining, 120 
 Heavily the low sky raining 
 
 Over tower 'd Camelot; 
 Down she came and found a boat 
 Beneath a Avillow left afloat, 
 And round about the prow she wrote 125 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 And down the river's dim expanse 
 
 Like some bold seer in a trance, 
 
 Seeing all his own mischance — 
 
 With a glassy countenance 130 
 
 Did she look to Camelot. 
 And at the closing of the day 
 She loosed the chain, and down she lay; 
 The broad stream bore her far away, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 135 
 
 Lying, robed in snowy white 
 That loosely flew to left and right — 
 The leaves upon her falling light — 
 Thro' the noises of the night 
 
 She floated down to Camelot ; 140 
 
 And as the boat-head wound along 
 The willowy hills and fields among, 
 They heard her singing her last song, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Heard a carol, mournful, holy, 145 
 
 Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, 
 Till her blood was frozen slowly
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 265 
 
 And tier eyes were darken 'd wholly 
 
 Turn'd to tower 'd Camelot. 
 For ere she reach 'd upon the tide 150 
 
 The first house by the water-side, 
 Singing in her song she died, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Under tower and balcony, 
 
 By garden-wall and gallery, 155 
 
 A gleaming shape she floated by, 
 
 Dead-pale between the houses high. 
 
 Silent into Camelot. 
 Out upon the wharfs they came, 
 Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 160 
 
 And round the prow they read her name, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Who is this? and what is here? 
 
 And in the lighted palace near 
 
 Died the sound of royal cheer ; 165 
 
 And they crossed themselves for fear. 
 
 All the knights at Camelot. 
 But Lancelot mused a little space : 
 He said, "She has a lovely face; 
 God in his mercy lend her grace, 170 
 
 TheLady of Shalott." 
 
 — Alfred Lord Tennyson.
 
 Merlin and the Gleam 
 
 267
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 269 
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
 
 Tennyson's Merlin and the Gleam is an allegory of 
 the poetic career of its author. Moreover, if one wants 
 to find in it the great less.on of faithfulness to high 
 ideals, such a lesson is not far to seek. 
 
 Merlin and the Gleam was published in Tennyson's 
 last volume, 1889, when he was eighty years of age. In 
 some respects it is as remarkable a piece of work as that 
 other and more familiar old-age poem, Crossing the Bar, 
 published in the same volume. 
 
 Merlin was the name of an ancient British prophet 
 and magician about whom legends arose as early as the 
 fifth century. He was the great enchanter of the time. 
 He appears in English, French, Italian, and German 
 versions of romances, in both prose and verse. The best 
 known Merlin legends are those in Malory's Morte 
 d' Arthur and Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 
 
 One of the earliest legends of Merlin was to the effect 
 that this old magician was beguiled by an enchantress 
 called Nimue, who led him as she liked. Now Nimue 
 means "The Gleam." 
 
 Tennyson was interested from boyhood in all of the 
 old Arthurian legends, and the story of Merlin particu- 
 larly had thrown its magic over him — so his son Hallam 
 says. The same authority (in the admirable Macmillan 
 & Company edition of Tennyson's Works, London, 1908) 
 says that ' ' for those who eared to know about his literary 
 history he wrote Merlin and the Gleam."
 
 270 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
 
 Merlin, the old magician and prophet, is Tennyson 
 himself. 
 
 "The Gleam signifies," as his son says, "that spirit 
 of poetry which bade him know his power and follow 
 throughout his work a pure and high ideal with a simple 
 and single devotedness and a desire to ennoble the life 
 of the world, and which helped him through doubts and 
 difficulties to 'endure as seeing Ilim Who is invisible.' " 
 Tennyson says of his poem further: "In the story of 
 Merlin and Nimue I have read that Nimue means 'The 
 Gleam' — which signifies in my poem the higher poetic 
 imagination. Verse 4 is the early imagination ; Verse 5 
 alludes to the Pastorals. ' ' 
 
 Tennyson all of his life followed the light of this high 
 poetic ideal just as Merlin of old followed Nimue, the 
 Gleam. This is the interpretation of the allegory in the 
 IX)em. 
 
 In Stanza 1 he speaks of himself as the "gray Magi- 
 cian" whom the youth is Watching with eyes of wonder 
 and admiration that his great power in the magic of 
 words and thoughts should remain so full and strong at 
 so great an age. He had come to be the modern Merlin. 
 
 In Stanza 2 he tells how the old wizard, the ancient 
 Merlin, had found him in boyhood ("at sunrise") and 
 taught him magic, and how the Gleam floated before him 
 and all around him, "moving to melody." Tennyson 
 did in a very rare and very beautiful way, even in his 
 early verses, master the art of melody. 
 
 The croak of the raven, in Stanza 3, was the harsh 
 voice of criticism of those who were not sympathetic. 
 ' * Still the inward voice told him not to be faint-hearted
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 271 
 
 but to follow his ideal. And by the delight in his own 
 romantic fancy and by the harmonies of Nature, 'the 
 warble of water' and the 'cataract music of falling tor- 
 rents,' the inspiration of the poet was renewed," says 
 Hallam Tennyson. The poet himself says in one of his 
 notes, already quoted, that Stanza 4 is the early imagina- 
 tion and that Stanza 5 refers to his pastoral poems, 
 published a little later. The latter stanza is a charming 
 description of his poems of country scenes. 
 
 The Gleam then led him, Stanza 6, to tell the story of 
 King Arthur and his knights in The Idylls of the King, 
 "the city and palace of Arthur the King." The Gleam 
 rested on the forehead of Arthur the blameless because 
 he was the central figure of The Idylls. 
 
 The next stanza refers to the death of Arthur Hallam, 
 for whom In Memoriam was written. The death of Ar- 
 thur Hallam affected him more than any other experi- 
 ence in his life and plunged him into the very depth of 
 abiding sorrow, and the Gleam "waned to a wintry 
 glimmer" and drew to the dark Valley of the Shadow 
 of Death. But even this shadow changed, slowly bright- 
 ening, clothed with the Gleam. Hallam Tennyson points 
 out that his father, in Stanza 7, unites the two Arthurs 
 — the Arthur of the Idylls and Arthur Hallam, "the 
 man he held as half divine." 
 
 Then we have the two splendid closing stanzas, in 
 which the Gleam gets broader and brighter for the poet 
 in his eighty years, and he, though old and weary, is 
 eager to follow. And wherever the Gleam passed, 
 whether over hamlet or city or church or grave, the 
 Gleam would make it break into bloom! Such are the
 
 272 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
 
 magic gifts of the imagination. And so to tbe edge of 
 life he comes, to the land's last limit, and there on the 
 borders of the boundless ocean, on the hither verge of 
 Heaven, hovers the Gleam — the Light which he has fol- 
 lowed from childhood. 
 
 And this Gleam is not an earthly beacon, not of the 
 sunlight, not of the moonlight, not of the starlight. The 
 closing lines of the poem, even as the opening lines, are 
 addressed to the young mariner of life: 
 
 Call your companions, 
 Launch your vessel, 
 And crowd your canvas, 
 And, ere it vanishes 
 Over the margin. 
 After it, follow it, 
 Follow The Gleam. 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 I. The aged poet, speaking of himself as Merlin or the Jlagi- 
 
 cian, addresses a young man. Lines 1-10. 
 IL In his childhood the poet followed the poetic light (11-23). 
 III. But the Raven of Criticism croaked and the poet was silent 
 
 for a while (24-34). 
 IV. The poetry of his young manhood (35-48). 
 V. His pastoral poems — the English Idyls (49-62). 
 VI. The Idylls of the King (63-75). 
 VII. In Memoriam (76-95). 
 VIIL Following the Gleam in his old age (96-120). 
 
 IX. The young man is urged to follow his ideal before it van- 
 ishes among the cares of life (121-132).
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 273 
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM. 
 
 young Mariner, 
 You from the haven 
 Under the sea-cliff, 
 You that are watching 
 
 The gray Magician 5 
 
 With eyes of wonder, 
 
 1 am Merlin, 
 And I am dying, 
 I am Merlin 
 
 Who follow The Gleam. 10 
 
 Mighty the Wizard 
 
 Who found me at sunrise 
 
 Sleeping, and woke me 
 
 And learned me Magic! 
 
 Great the Master, 15 
 
 And sweet the Magic, 
 
 When over the valley, 
 
 In early summers, 
 
 Over the Mountain, 
 
 On human faces, 20 
 
 And all around me, 
 
 learned me Magic! (line 14) — an archaic use of "learned" for 
 tanght. Shakespeare, Spenser and other old writers use it in that 
 sense.
 
 274 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
 
 ]\Ioving to melody, 
 Floated the Gleam. 
 
 Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it 
 A barbarous people, 25 
 
 Blind to the magic, 
 And deaf to the melody, 
 Snarl'd at and cursed me. 
 A demon vext me, 
 
 The light retreated, 30 
 
 The landskip darken 'd, 
 The melody deaden 'd. 
 The master whisper 'd 
 ''Follow The Gleam." 
 
 4: 
 
 Then to the melody, 35 
 
 Over a wilderness 
 
 Gliding, aud glancing at 
 
 Elf of the woodland. 
 
 Gnome of the cavern, 
 
 Griffen and Giant, 40 
 
 And dancing of Fairies 
 
 In desolate hollows. 
 
 And wraiths of the mountain, 
 
 And rolling of dragons 
 
 By warble of water, 45 
 
 Or cataract music 
 
 Of falling torrents, 
 
 Flitted The Gleam.
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 275 
 
 Down from the mountain 
 
 And over the level, 50 
 
 And streaming and shining on 
 
 Silent river, 
 
 Silvery willow, 
 
 Pasture and plowland, 
 
 Horses and oxen, 55 
 
 Innocent maidens, 
 
 Garrulous children. 
 
 Homestead and harvest, 
 
 Reaper and gleaner. 
 
 And rough ruddy faces 60 
 
 Of lowly labour, 
 
 Slided The Gleam. — 
 
 Then, with a melody 
 
 Stronger and statelier, 
 
 Led me at length 65 
 
 To the city and palace 
 
 Of Arthur the king; 
 
 Touch 'd at the golden 
 
 Cross of the churches, 
 
 Flash 'd on the Tournament, 70 
 
 Flicker 'd and bicker 'd 
 
 From helmet to helmet, 
 
 And last on the forehead 
 
 Of Arthur the blameless 
 
 Rested The Gleam. 75
 
 276 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
 
 Clouds and darkness 
 
 Closed upon Camelot; 
 
 Arthur had vanish 'd 
 
 I knew not whither, 
 
 The king who loved me, 80 
 
 And cannot die; 
 
 For out of the darkness 
 
 Silent and slowly 
 
 The Gleam, that had waned to a wintry 
 
 glimmer 
 On icy fallow 85 
 
 And faded forest. 
 Drew to the valley 
 Named of the shadow, 
 And slowly brightening 
 
 Out of the glimmer, 90 
 
 And slowly moving again to melody 
 Yearningly tender, 
 Fell on the shadow, 
 No longer a shadow, 
 But clothed with The Gleam. 95 
 
 8 
 
 And broader and brighter 
 The Gleam flying onward, 
 Wed to the melody. 
 Sang thro' the world; 
 
 And cannot die; (81) — the old legends said that King Arthur could 
 not die, but would return to Camelot.
 
 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 277 
 
 Aud slower and fainter, 100 
 
 Old and weary, 
 
 But eager to follow, 
 
 I saw, whenever 
 
 In passing it glanced upon 
 
 Hamlet or city, 105 
 
 That under the Crosses 
 
 The dead man's garden, 
 
 The mortal hillock, 
 
 Would break into blossom; 
 
 And so to the land's 110 
 
 Last limit I came — 
 
 And can no longer. 
 
 But die rejoicing, 
 
 For thro' the Magic 
 
 Of Him the Mighty, 115 
 
 Who taught me in childhood, 
 
 There on the border 
 
 Of boundless Ocean, 
 
 And all but in Heaven 
 
 Hovers The Gleam. 120 
 
 Not of the sunlight, 
 
 Not of the moonlight. 
 
 Not of the starlight ! 
 
 young Mariner, 
 
 Down to the haven, 125 
 
 Call your companions, 
 
 The dead man's garden, (107) — a cemetery.
 
 278 MERLIN AND THE GLEAM 
 
 Launch your vessel, 
 
 And crowd your canvas, 
 
 And, ere it vanishes 
 
 Over the margin, 130 
 
 After it, follow it, 
 
 Follow The Gleam. 
 
 — Alfred Lord Tennyson.
 
 Andrea Del Sarto 
 
 279
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 281 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 In the Pitti Gallery in Florence there is a portrait of 
 the artist Andrea del Sarto and his wife, Lucrezia, 
 painted by the artist himself. The two are seated at the 
 window opening toward the picturesque old town of Fie- 
 sole, three miles to the west. The artist's right arm rests 
 upon the shoulder of his wife and his left hand is mak- 
 ing a mild appealing gesture in the attitude of one talk- 
 ing. He seems to be speaking half to her and half to 
 himself. Lucrezia seems not to be listening to anything 
 he says : her thoughts are elsewhere. She is a beautiful 
 woman physically, but wholly wanting in intellectual or 
 spiritual expression; there is no sign of love or con- 
 science. Lucrezia has red-brown hair, there is a gold 
 chain about her neck, and she holds a letter in her hand. 
 Andrea's face is refined, melancholy, weak, helpless, 
 weary. A gray tone pervades the picture, and one can 
 not look upon it without feeling that here is the story 
 of a soul's tragedy. 
 
 Browning lived across the street from this picture, and 
 the picture, together with the story of Andrea's life, as 
 told by George Vasari, in his Lives of the Most Eminent 
 Italian Painters, furnished him with the material for 
 his poem Andrea del Sarto. The poem is, in fact, a 
 commentary upon the picture. John Kenyon, Mrs. 
 Browning's cousin, had asked Browning to get for him a 
 copy of the picture. Not being able to find one. Brown- 
 ing wrote for him this poem instead. 
 
 Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) lived at Florence during
 
 282 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 the great time of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo 
 da Vinci. He was known as "the faultless painter," 
 because his drawing and his coloring were so perfect. 
 But though he was a faultless painter he was a weak 
 character. He fell in love with Lucrezia, the beautiful 
 but not very reputable wife of a cap-maker, and after 
 her husband's death married her. She delighted in trap- 
 ping the hearts of other men besides Andrea, but al- 
 though he knew her faults he had not the power to 
 release himself from her. She had no appreciation of 
 his art or interest in it. Under her spell he neglected 
 his work and ceased to provide for his needy parents. 
 But certain pictures of his had attracted the attention 
 of King Francis of France and he was invited to go 
 and paint at the French court. A letter from Lucrezia 
 called him back to Florence. The King gave him leave 
 to go, Andrea taking an oath on the gospels to return 
 within a few months. The King commissioned him to 
 buy certain works of art in Florence and entrusted him 
 with the money to pay for them. Andrea did not return 
 to France, nor did he purchase the works of art for the 
 King, but instead he used the money in building a house 
 for Lucrezia — the one at whose window they are sitting 
 in the picture. ''The prayers and tears of his wife had 
 more power than his own necessities, or the faith wliich 
 he had pledged to the king," says Vasari, who was a 
 pupil of Andrea. Lucrezia survived her husband forty 
 years. One day, a year before her death, when an artist 
 was copying one of her husband's pictures in the court 
 of one of the churches, an old woman of eighty stopped 
 to speak to him on her way to mass, and pointing to the
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 283 
 
 figure of the handsome young matron in the picture told 
 him that this was her portrait and that she was Lucrezia, 
 the widow of the great painter. 
 
 The criticism of Andrea del Sarto as a painter, by 
 John Addington Symonds {The Renaissance in Italy — 
 The Fine Arts, p. 497), has direct bearing upon the 
 meaning of Browning's poem. He says: 
 
 "The Italians^ called him '11 pittore senza errore,' or the faultless 
 painter. What they meant by this must have been that in technical 
 requirements of art ... he was above criticism. As a colorist 
 he vrent further and produced more beautiful effects than any 
 Florentine before him. . . . What he lacked was the most pre- 
 cious gift — inspiration, depth of emotion, energy of thought. . . . 
 The story that his wife, a worthless woman, sat for his Madonnas, 
 and the legends of his working for money to meet pressing needs, 
 seemed justified by numbers of his paintings, faulty in their fault- 
 lessness and want of spirit. Still after making these deductions, 
 we must allow that Andrea del Sarto not unworthily represents 
 the golden age of Florence." 
 
 Now let us read the poem. A careful study of it will 
 be profitable for at least three reasons : It is an excellent 
 example of Browning's method of dramatic monologue 
 in revealing a human soul by showing his readers a cross- 
 section of that soul at a crucial moment ; it shows us his 
 attitude toward the secret of great art ; it shows us, indi- 
 rectly, his interpretation of life. For with Browning, 
 art and the art of life have the same word at the heart 
 of them, and that word is ''aspiration" — not fulfillment, 
 but infinite and unattained aspiration, and the struggle 
 that accompanies it. 
 
 "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what's a heaven for?" 
 
 " 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump bo leaven — 
 
 The better! What's come to perfection perishes. 
 Things learned on earth, we shall practice in heaven."
 
 284 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 ANALYSIS OF TOE POEM 
 
 Scene — Andrea del Sarto and his wife, Lucrezia, are 
 seated at the window of the studio opening over Florence 
 toward Fiesole. It is an evening in autumn. Andrea 
 is speaking, and the poem is a monologue throughout. 
 
 Mood — ' ' A common grayness silvers everything, ' ' and 
 this is the prevailing tone of the poem. It is autumn in 
 the picture and autumn in the speaker's heart. 
 
 Lucrezia's Character — The wife's personality is 
 clearly presented in such lines as 4, 23-32, 38, 54-56, 
 74-75, 117-132, 199-200, 219, 222, and 241-243. 
 
 Andrea entreats Lucrezia to sit with him, for he is 
 weary, discouraged. He tells her if she will do so he 
 will to-morrow paint the picture to supply her with the 
 money which she is demanding of him for one of her 
 friends. In her smile he sees the picture he is to paint — 
 its tone, sentiment, atmosphere, and harmony (lines 
 1-50). 
 
 He tells with what ease and perfection he does his 
 work — in this respect how superior he is to his associ- 
 ates. Of course she does not understand or care to 
 understand about his art, but she can hear when other 
 people praise it (50-77). 
 
 But he recognizes their superiority over him because 
 there burns a truer light of God in them, because they 
 reach a heaven that's shut to him. Pie can paint all he 
 sees, but they show in their less finished work that their 
 vision is higher than his. Their reach exceeds their 
 grasp ; his does not. If he had their vision, combined
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 285 
 
 with his own skill, he might have over-topped the world 
 (78-103) . 
 
 He illustrates this by pointing out in the room a picture 
 by Raphael ("the Urbanite"), faulty in drawing but 
 with its soul right. Had you but urged me onward, 
 brought me soul and inspiration as well as beauty, he says 
 to Lucrezia, I might have risen side by side with Raphael 
 and Michael Angelo (104-131). 
 
 But perhaps, after all, he says, it is God's will. Then 
 he half blames himself — perhaps he did not have the 
 will to rise. Neither Raphael nor Angelo had a wife to 
 urge him on (132-144). 
 
 Then he refers to the time when he painted for the 
 King of France — that glorious time, when under the 
 smile of the King and the Court he was able to "leave 
 the ground" and put on for a brief time the glory that 
 abides constantly with Raphael. Those were his kingly 
 days, but Lucrezia called him home. He lost his oppor- 
 tunity, but he is satisfied; men will understand (145- 
 182). 
 
 He recalls what Angelo said about him once to Raphael 
 a long time ago : praise which he has treasured in his 
 heart, but which Lucrezia does not at all appreciate, for 
 she immediately forgets who it was that had praised her 
 husband. Then he refers again to Raphael's defective 
 drawing, and proceeds to correct it, but instantly erases 
 his correction (183-200). 
 
 The clock strikes: they have been sitting an hour. 
 The autumn evening deepens. He begs for more love and 
 asks her to go from the studio into the house — "the 
 melancholy little house ihey built with King Francis'
 
 286 ANI)REA DEL SARTO 
 
 money to be so gay with." But she is restless: her 
 "cousin" waits outside for her, Andrea says he will 
 sit the gray remainder of the evening out and muse how, 
 if he were back in France, he would paint one more pic- 
 ture worthy of Michael Angelo's praise. Let the 
 "cousin" wait until to-miorrow — he shall Ihave iiihe 
 money to pay his gambling debt ("the thirteen scudi for 
 the ruff") (201-243). 
 
 The monologue closes in a mood of despair. The artist 
 resigns himself to his state and excuses his treatment of 
 his parents — one can't have everything or be every- 
 thing. But he craves one chance more, the chance to 
 paint one of the four walls of the New Jerusalem: 
 one for Leonardo, one for Raphael, one for Michael 
 Angelo, and the other for him. But he recognizes that it 
 is impossible, for "there's still Lucrezia," and for her 
 sake he will give up the chance. They may paint the 
 walls of the New Jerusalem, he never can. He accepts 
 fate now, but fate which his will is responsible for (244- 
 267). 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 (called "the faultless painter") 
 
 But do not let us quarrel any more. 
 
 No, my Lucrezia ! bear with me for once : 
 
 Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
 
 You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 
 
 I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, 5 
 
 Treat his own subject after his own way, 
 
 Fix his own time, accept too his own price.
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 287 
 
 Aud shut the money into this small hand 
 
 When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? 
 
 Oh, I'll content him, — but to-morrow, Love! 10 
 
 I often am much wearier than you tliink. 
 
 This evening more than usual : and it seems 
 
 As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
 
 Here by the window, with your hand in mine, 
 
 And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 15 
 
 Both of one mind, as married people use, 
 
 Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
 
 I might get up to-morrow to my work 
 
 Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
 
 To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! 20 
 
 Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 
 
 And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. 
 
 Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve 
 
 For each of the five pictures we require : 
 
 It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — 25 
 
 My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 
 
 — How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 
 
 Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — 
 
 My face, my moon, my everybodj^'s moon. 
 
 Which everybodj^ looks on and calls his, 30 
 
 And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, 
 
 While she looks — no one's: very dear, no less. 
 
 You smile? why, there's my picture ready made, 
 
 There's what we painters call our harmony! 
 
 A common grayness silvers everything, — 35 
 
 All in a twilight, you and I alike 
 
 It saves a model (25) — Lncrezia's face appears in many of her 
 •husband's most famous pictures.
 
 288 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 — You, at the point of your first pride in me 
 (That's gone, you know) — but I, at every point; 
 My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
 
 To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 40 
 
 There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; 
 
 That length of convent-wall across the way 
 
 Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 
 
 The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease 
 
 And autumn grows, autumn in everything. — 45 
 
 Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape, 
 
 As if I saw alike my work and self 
 
 And all that I was born to be and do, 
 
 A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 
 
 How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead ; 50 
 
 So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 
 
 I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie ! 
 
 This chamber for example — turn your head — 
 
 All that's behind us! You don't understand 
 
 Nor care to understand about my art, 55 
 
 But you can hear at least when people speak : 
 
 And that cartoon, the second from the door 
 
 — It is the thing, Love ! so such things shjould be — 
 Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. 
 
 I can do with my pencil what I know, 60 
 
 What I see, what at bottom of my heart 
 
 I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 
 
 Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
 
 I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, 
 
 Who listened to the Legate's talk last week ; 65 
 
 And just as much they used to say in France. 
 
 At any rate 't is easy, all of it !
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 289 
 
 No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: 
 
 I do what many dream of, all their lives, 
 
 — Dream ? strive to do, and agonize to do, 70 
 
 And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 
 
 On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, 
 
 Who strive — you don 't know how the others strive 
 
 To paint a little thing like that you smeared 
 
 Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 75 
 
 Yet do much less, so much less, Someone sa3''s, 
 
 (T know his name, no matter) — so much less! 
 
 Well, less is more, Lucrezia : I am judged. 
 
 There burns a truer light of God in them, 
 
 In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up 80 
 
 brain, — 
 Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt 
 This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. 
 Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, 
 Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, 
 Enter and take their place there sure enough, 85 
 
 Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world. 
 My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
 The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 
 Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 
 I, painting for myself and to myself, 90 
 
 Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 
 Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 
 Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 
 His hue mistaken ; what of that 1 or else, 
 Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that? 95 
 
 Someone says (7G) — Michael Angclo. 
 
 MoreJlo (93) — A mountain north of Florence.
 
 290 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? 
 
 Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 
 Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray, 
 
 Placid and perfect with my art : the worse ! 
 
 I know both what I want and what might gain, 100 
 
 And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
 
 "Had I been two, another and myself, 
 
 Our head would have o'erlooked the world !" No doubt. 
 
 Yonder 's a work done, of that famous youth 
 
 The Urbinate who died five years ago. 105 
 
 ( 'T is copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 
 
 Well, I can fancy how he did it all, 
 
 Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, 
 
 Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, 
 
 Above and thro' his art — for it gives way ; 110 
 
 That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 
 
 A fault to pardon in tlie drawing's lines, 
 
 Its body, so to speak : its soul is right. 
 
 He means right — that, a child may understand. 
 
 Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: 115 
 
 But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 
 
 Out of me, out of me ! And wherefore out ? 
 
 Had you enjoined thorn on me, given me soul. 
 
 We might have risen to Rafael, I and you ! 
 
 Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 120 
 
 More than I merit, yes, by many times. 
 
 But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow, 
 
 And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 
 
 And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
 
 The Urbinate (105) — Raphael, born at Urbino.
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 291 
 
 The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 125 
 
 Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind ! 
 
 Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 
 
 ' ' God and the glory ! never care for gain. 
 
 The present by the future, what is that ? 
 
 Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 130 
 
 Eafael is waiting: up to God, all three!" 
 
 I might have done it for you. So it seems : 
 
 Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules. 
 
 Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 
 
 The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 135 
 
 Wliat wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ? 
 
 In this world, who can do a thing, will not ; 
 
 And who would do it, can not, I perceive : 
 
 Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power 
 
 And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 140 
 
 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 
 
 'T is safer for me, if the award be strict, 
 
 That I am something underrated here. 
 
 Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 
 
 I dare not, do you know, leave home all day, 145 
 
 For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 
 
 The best is when they pass and look aside ; 
 
 But they speak sometimes ; I must bear it all. 
 
 Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first time. 
 
 And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 150 
 
 I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 
 
 Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, 
 
 Agnolo (130) — Michael Angclo. 
 
 For fear of chancing on ihe Paris lords (140) — who knew of his 
 defalcation towards their King.
 
 292 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 In that humane great monarch 's golden look, —> 
 
 One finger in his beard or twisted curl 
 
 Over his month 's good mark that made the smile, 155 
 
 One arm about my shoulder, round my neck. 
 
 The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 
 
 I painting proudly with his breath on me, 
 
 All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, 
 
 Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 160 
 
 Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 
 
 And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond. 
 
 This in the background, waiting on my work. 
 
 To crown the issue with a last reward ! 
 
 A good time, was it not, my kingly days? 165 
 
 And had you not grown restless . . , but I know — 
 
 'T is done and past ; 't was right, my instinct said ; 
 
 Too live the life grew, golden and not gray: 
 
 And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 
 
 Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. 170 
 
 How could it end in any other way ? 
 
 You called me, and I came home to your heart. 
 
 The triumph was — to reach and stay there ; since 
 
 I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? 
 
 Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, 175 
 
 You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 
 
 ''Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; 
 
 The Roman's is the better when you pray. 
 
 But still the other's Virgin was his wife — " 
 
 IMen will excuse me. I am glad to judge 180 
 
 Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows 
 
 This face beyond (162) — Lucrezia's. 
 the Roman's (179) — Michael Angelo.
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 293 
 
 My better fortune, I resolve to think. 
 
 For do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives. 
 
 Said one day Agnolo, his very self, 
 
 To Rafael ... I have known it all these years . . . 185 
 
 (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts 
 
 Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, 
 
 Too lifted up in heart becaiLse of it) 
 
 "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub 
 
 Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, 190 
 
 Who, were he set to plan and execute 
 
 As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings. 
 
 Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!" 
 
 To Rafael 's ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 
 
 I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 195 
 
 Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go ! 
 
 Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out! 
 
 Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 
 
 (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? 
 
 Do you forget already words like those ? ) 200 
 
 If really there was such a chance so lost, — 
 
 Is, whether you're — not grateful — but more pleased. 
 
 Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed ! 
 
 This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 
 
 If you would sit thus by me every night 205 
 
 I should w^ork better, do you comprehend? 
 
 I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 
 
 See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; 
 
 Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall. 
 
 The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 210 
 
 Come from the window, love, — come in, at last, 
 
 Inside the melancholy little house
 
 294 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 We built to be so gay with. God is just. 
 
 King Francis may forgive me : oft at nights 
 
 When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 215 
 
 The walls become illumined, brick from brick 
 
 Distinct, instead of onortar, fierce bright gold, 
 
 That gold of his I did cement them with ! 
 
 Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 
 
 That Cousin here again ? he waits outside ? 220 
 
 Must see you — you, and not with me ? Those loans ? 
 
 More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 
 
 Well, let smiles buy me ! have you more to spend ? 
 
 While hand and eye and something of a heart 
 
 Are left me, work 's my ware, and what 's it worth ? 225 
 
 I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit 
 
 The gray remainder of the evening out, 
 
 Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 
 
 How I could paint, were I but back in France, 
 
 One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face, 230 
 
 Not yo^^rs this time ! I want you at my side 
 
 To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 
 
 Judge all I do and tell yon of its worth. 
 
 Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 
 
 I take the subjects for his corridor, 235 
 
 Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there. 
 
 And throw him in another thing or two 
 
 If he demurs ; the whole should prove enough 
 
 To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, 
 
 What's better, and what's all I care about, 240 
 
 Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! 
 
 Scudi for the ruff (241) — "scudi," Italian coins; "ruff," a game 
 of cards.
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 295 
 
 Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, 
 The Cousin ! what does he to please you more ? 
 
 I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
 I regret little, I would change still less. 245 
 
 Since there my past life lies, why alter it ? 
 The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
 I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 
 And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 
 My father and my mother died of want. 250 
 
 Well, had I riches of my own? you see 
 How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot. 
 They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died : 
 And I have laboured somewhat in my time 
 And not been paid profusely. Some good son 255 
 
 Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 
 No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, 
 You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
 This must suffice me here. What would one have ? 
 In 'heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance — 260 
 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
 Meted on each side by the angel's reed. 
 For Leonard, Eafael, Agnolo and me 
 
 four great walls in the New Jerusalem (261) — Revelations XXI; 
 15-18 : And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure 
 the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city 
 lieth four square, and the length is as large as the breadth : and he 
 measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The 
 length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he 
 measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits, 
 according to the measure of a man, that is of the angel. And the 
 building of the wall of it was of jasper : and the city was pure 
 gold, like unto clear glass. 
 
 Leonard (263) — Leonardo da Vlnci,
 
 296 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 To cover — the three first without a wife, 
 
 While I have mine ! So — still they overcome 265 
 
 Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 
 
 Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love. 
 
 — Robert Browning.
 
 The Lost Leader 
 
 297
 
 THE LOST LEADER 299 
 
 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 In 1845 Robert Browning published The Lost Leader, 
 a criticism of Wordsworth, or perhaps one ought to say 
 that it is a criticism of all leaders who desert the cause 
 of the people, Wordsworth being taken by Browning as 
 a type of all such. The Lost Leader is the confident 
 assurance of a young man (Browning was then thirty- 
 three and Wordsworth was seventy-five and had been 
 made Poet Laureate two years before). The poem 
 attracted attention as soon as it appeared, not only be- 
 cause of its attack upon the greatest of living English 
 poets, but because of its splendid qualities as a marching 
 cry for social progress ; and it continues to be one of the 
 best known of Browning's poems. 
 
 That Browning had the great Lake poet in mind is 
 clear; not only from his own admission later, but from 
 many other circumstances. William Sharp, in his Life 
 of Brow7iing, says: "It is best as well as right that 
 Wordsworth should not be more than nominally identi- 
 fied with The Lost Leader," but G. K. Chesterton (Life 
 of Browning) caUs it a ''perfectly normal and old- 
 fashioned indignation." Browning himself, in answer 
 to an inquiry, softened the matter over in this fashion: 
 
 "I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great 
 and venerable personality of Wordsworth as a sort of 
 painter's model; one from which this or the other par- 
 ticular feature may be selected and turned to account; 
 had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as por- 
 traying the entire man, I should not have talked about
 
 300 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 'Handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never 
 influenced the change of policy in the great poet; whose 
 defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a 
 regular face-about of his special party, was to my juve- 
 nile apprehension and even mature consideration an 
 event to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my 
 wall I can recognize figures which have struck out a 
 fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus 
 derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy, so, though 
 I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I alto- 
 gether refuse to have it considered as the 'vera effigies' 
 of such a moral and intellectual superiority." 
 
 Browning and "Wordsworth were acquainted with 
 each other and the younger poet often spoke of the older 
 with respect and praise, but all through the voluminous 
 correspondence of Browning and Elizabeth Barrett there 
 are references to Wordsworth which show that Browning 
 never fully appreciated either him or his poetry. 
 
 And then, there were good reasons why Browning or 
 any other Liberal should feel that Wordsworth had de- 
 serted the cause. As a young man, just out of the Uni- 
 versity, Wordsworth had been in enthusiastic sympathy 
 with the French Revolution and the cause of liberty and 
 equality. He visited France and thought of taking part 
 in the great struggle, but was called back to England. 
 He spoke of France as 
 
 Standing on the top of golden hours 
 
 and in 1850 he said : 
 
 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive 
 But to be young was very Heaven.
 
 THE LOST LExiDER 301 
 
 In a letter to the Bishop of Landoff he advocated 
 universal suffrage, defended the insight of the masses, 
 pleaded for extended education, and advocated the elec- 
 tion by the people of their chief ruler. This is surely- 
 wide-open democracy. Yet so changed had his opinions 
 become that in 1836 he could write: ''It is pride and 
 presumption, and not real love of liberty which has made 
 the French and the Americans so enamoured of what 
 they call equality." He had become, in fact, a pro- 
 nounced Conservative. He opposed the schemes for the 
 spread of education. Catholic Emancipation, the Reform 
 Bill, the New Poor Law — indeed, the whole great move- 
 ment about 1830 for the rights of the common people. 
 The process through which this change came about is 
 perfectly clear, but can not be discussed here. That 
 Wordsworth was absolutely sincere, there can be no sort 
 of doubt. He was not alone in changing his views — 
 Southey, Charles Kingsley, and others were with him. 
 And this fact must be remembered, that Wordsworth 
 remains for all time the supreme poet of the joys and 
 sorrows of the shepherds and dalesmen and humble folk 
 of the hills and dales of England. 
 
 It is interesting to recall that Shelley, a Liberalist of 
 the most radical type, addressed a sonnet to Wordsworth 
 in 1815 in which occur these lines : 
 
 "Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 
 On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: 
 Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
 Above the blind and battling multitude: 
 In honoured poverty thy voioe did weave 
 Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, — 
 Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 
 Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be."
 
 302 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 Just for a handful of silver he left us, 
 
 Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
 Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 
 
 Lost all the others she lets us devote; 
 They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver ; 5 
 
 So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
 How all our copper had gone for his service ! 
 
 Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! 
 We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, 
 
 Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 
 
 Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. 
 
 Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
 Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us. 
 
 Burns, Shelley, were wdth us, — they watch from their 
 graves ! 
 lie alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 15 
 
 — He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 
 We shall march prospering, — not through his presence ; 
 
 Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; 
 Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 
 
 Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 20 
 Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more. 
 
 One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
 
 The first two linos doubtless refer to the pension of £300 granted to 
 Wordsworth in 1842 and to the Laureateship bestowed upon him in 
 1843. The fourth line means that by accepting these official honors 
 from King George, Wordsworth had lost the esteem of those who had 
 been his Liberal followers. 
 
 Lines 10 and 11 are a fine and famous description of Wordsworth.
 
 THE LOST LEADER 303 
 
 One more devils '-triumph and sorrow for angels, 
 
 One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! 
 Life 's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 25 
 
 There would be doubt, hesitation and pain ; 
 Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 
 
 Never glad, confident morning again ! 
 Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 
 
 Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 30 
 
 Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 
 
 Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 
 
 — Robert Browning. 
 
 The new knowledge (line 31) — "Knowldcge of the Inevitableness 
 of the people's progress" — (Charlotte Porter and Ilelen A. Clarke).
 
 Philomela
 
 PHILOMELA 307 
 
 PHILOMELA 
 
 Few of Matthew Arnold's poems possess the exquisite 
 grace and charm of Philomela. It succeeds too in catch- 
 ing and expressing something of the indefinable "deep- 
 sunken old-world pain" of its theme. 
 
 Philomela is another name for the nightingale, the 
 finest of European song-birds, whose entrancing song is 
 heard in England chiefly in still nights of May and June. 
 To understand the poem one must know the ancient 
 Greek myth of Philomela, which is told with many vari- 
 ations by different writers, ancient and modem. 
 
 Pandion, King of Attica, had two daughters, Prokne 
 (or Procne) and Philomela. For assistance in a war 
 with the King of Thebes, rendered him by Tereus, King 
 of Thrace, Pandion gave Prokne to Tereus to be his wife, 
 and they went back to Thrace. After some time Prokne 
 wanted her sister Philomela to visit her, and Tereus went 
 to Athens to get her and accompany her to Thrace. On 
 the way he mistreated her and to keep her from telling 
 her sister, his wife, he cut out her tongue and shut her 
 up in a house in the woods, and told his wife that Philo- 
 mela was dead. Philomela, however, contrived to weave 
 the story of her treatment into a web or piece of tapes- 
 try and send it to her sister. Prokne succeeded in re- 
 leasing Philomela, and then to punish Tereus she had 
 served up to him in a dish to eat the flesh of his own son 
 Itylos (or Itys). Discovering what she had done, Tereus 
 pursued the two sisters with a sword. To aid them in 
 their escape from him, Prokne was changed by the gods
 
 308 PHILOMELA 
 
 into a swallow and Philomela into a nightingale. "The 
 one of them for the woods, the other takes her place be- 
 neath the roofs of houses. Nor even yet have the marks 
 of murder withdrawn from her breast, and her feathers 
 are still stained with blood." 
 
 This is the story as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses, 
 Book VI, lines 412 to 676. Some writers reverse the leg- 
 end and say that Philomela was changed into a swallow, 
 and Prokne into a nightingale. Another version is this : 
 
 Tereus, some time after his marriage to Prokne, tired 
 of her, and pretending to her sister Pdiilomela that 
 Prokne was dead, he married Philomela. To prevent 
 Prokne from revealing the truth he tore out her tongue 
 and placed her in a cage. But Prokne wove a statement 
 of the facts into a piece of tapestry or web and sent it to 
 her sister. The two sisters then, in order to execute a 
 terrible revenge upon TereiTS, killed his young son, 
 Itylos, and placed the flesh in a dish before him. Tereus 
 drew his sword and pursued the sisters till all three were 
 changed by the gods into birds : he into a lapwing, Prokne 
 into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale. Itys 
 or Itylos was changed into a pheasant. 
 
 The legend is connected with the G-reek city of Daulis, 
 the "lone Daulis" in the "high Cephissian vale" of 
 Arnold's poem. 
 
 PHILOMELA 
 
 Hark! Ah the Nightingale! 
 
 The tawny-throated ! 
 
 Hark ! from the moonlit cedar what a burst !
 
 PHILOMELA 309 
 
 What triumph ! hark — what pain ! 
 
 O Wanderer from a Grecian shore, 
 
 Still, after many years, in distant lands, 
 
 Still nourishing in thy bewilder 'd brain 
 
 That wild, unquench 'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain — 
 
 Say, will it never heal? 
 And can this fragrant lawn 
 With its cool trees, and night, 
 And the sweet, tranquil Thames, 
 And moonsihine and the dew, 
 To thy rack'd heart and brain 
 
 Afford no balm? 
 
 Dost thou tonight behold 
 Here, through the moonlight on this English grass. 
 The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild ? 
 
 Dost thou again peruse 
 With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 
 The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister's shame? 
 
 Dost thou once more assay 
 Thy flight and feel come over thee, 
 Poor Fugitive, the feathery change 
 Once more, and once more seem to make resound 
 With love and (hate, triumph and agony, 
 Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? 
 
 Listen, Eugenia — 
 How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves ! 
 
 Again — thou hearest ! 
 Eternal passion ! 
 Eternal pain ! __ Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Compare Swinburne's Itylus with Arnold's poem.
 
 The Deacon's Masterpiece ; or, the 
 Wonderful *'One-Hoss Shay" 
 
 311
 
 THE DEACON'S MASTERriECE 313 
 
 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE 
 WONDERFUL ''ONE-HOSS SHAY" 
 
 No other American poem is so generally misunderstood 
 as Holmes' familiar One-hoss Shay. An examination of 
 more than thirty references to it by as many critics and 
 commentators, American and English, shows only one 
 who sees in it anything more than fine fun and excellent 
 Yankee humor. Everybody sees that, enjoys it, and 
 praises it; but Professor Barrett Wendell sees in it also 
 "one of the most pitiless satires in our language." 
 
 It is a satire on the logically constructed theology of 
 early New England, especially that theology as formu- 
 lated by Jonathan Edwards in his great work on The 
 Freedom of the Will. As a feat of logical reasoning 
 this work by Jonathan Edwards surpasses anything done 
 by any other American writer. The unbending Cal- 
 vinistic creed as forged by Edwards seemed unanswer- 
 able, and yet, in a hundred years. New England had 
 turned away from it and had gone over very largely to 
 Unitarianism. Edwards 'great work was published in 1755 
 — notice the date. That was the year also of the Lisbon 
 earthquake and the defeat of General Braddock at Fort 
 Duquesne, but these are mere incidents : they have noth- 
 ing to do with the meaning of the poem, unless Holmes 
 intends for us to think of the publioaition of Edwards' 
 book as a calamity along with the other calamities of 
 1755! The One-hoss Shay was published almost exactly 
 a hundred years after The Freedom of the Will; that is 
 to say, a hundred years after this perfectly constructed
 
 314 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE 
 
 theological creed. Holmes saw that the creed had gone 
 to pieces, and rejoiced in the fact. His father had been 
 a stern adherent of that belief, but he himself was a 
 Unitarian, and he criticised the older creed in prose, in 
 verse, and in speech, offending some, shocking others, but 
 perhaps producing a tonic effect upon all. 
 
 All we have to do is to bear in mind that the "Dea- 
 con" stands for Jonathan Edwards and that the "Won- 
 derful One-hoss Shay" stands for his system of theology, 
 which was so perfectly constructed "that it couldn't 
 break down" — but did — and we can see in the poem 
 not only the finest flower of Yankee humor but also a 
 satire that has but few equals for merciless keenness. 
 
 THE DEACON'S MASTEEPIECE ; 'OR, THE 
 WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" 
 
 A LOGICAL STORY 
 
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
 That was built in such a logical way 
 It ran a hundred years to a day, 
 And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 
 I '11 tell you what happened without delay, — 
 (Scaring the parson into fits. 
 Frightening people out of their wits — 
 Have you ever heard of that, I say? 
 'Seventeen hundred and fifty-five ; 
 Georgius Sccundus was then alive — 
 Snuffy old drone from the German hive;
 
 WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY " 815 
 
 That was the year when Lisbon-town 
 Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
 And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
 Left without a scalp to its crown. 
 It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
 That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 
 Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 
 There is always someivhere a weakest spot — 
 In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill. 
 In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 
 In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace — lurking still ; 
 Find it somewhere you must and will — 
 Above or below, or within or without; 
 And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, 
 A chaise hreaks down but doesn't wear out. 
 
 But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, 
 With an ''I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou") 
 He would build one shay to beat the taown 
 'n ' the keounty 'n ' all the kentry raoun ' ; 
 It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: 
 ' ' Fur, ' ' said the Deacon, " 't 's mighty plain 
 Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 
 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, 
 
 Is only jest 
 T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 
 
 So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 
 Where he could find the strongest oak. 
 That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke — 
 
 That was for spokes and floors and sills ; 
 He sent for lance wood to make the thills ; 
 The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees ;
 
 316 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE 
 
 The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese 
 But lasts like iron for things like these ; 
 The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum" 
 (Last of its timber — they couldn 't sell 'em ; 
 Never an axe had seen their chips, 
 And the wedges flew from between their lips, 
 Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips) ; 
 Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 
 Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 
 Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; 
 Thoroughbrace, bison-skin thick and wide ; 
 Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 
 Found in the pit when the tanner died ; 
 That was the way he "put her through." 
 "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" 
 
 Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 
 She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 
 Colts grew horses, beards turned gray. 
 Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 
 Children and grandchildren — where were they ? 
 But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 
 As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake day! 
 Eighteen hundred ; it came and found 
 The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
 Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; 
 ' ' Hahnsum kerridge ' ' they called it then, 
 Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; 
 Running as usual, much the same. 
 Thirty and forty at last arrive; 
 And then come fifty, and fifty-five. 
 
 Little of all we value here
 
 WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" 317 
 
 Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 
 Without both feeling and looking queer. 
 In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, 
 So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 
 (This is a moral that runs at large : 
 Take it; you're welcome — no extra charge.) 
 
 First op November — the Earthquake-day; 
 There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
 A general flavor of mild decay, 
 But nothing local, as one may say. 
 There couldn't be, for the Deacon's art 
 Had made it so like in every part 
 That there wasn't a chance for one to start; 
 For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
 And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
 And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
 And the whipple-tree neither less nor more. 
 And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, 
 And the spring and axle and hub encore. 
 And yet, as a wJiole, it is past a doubt, 
 In another hour it will be tvorn out! 
 
 First of November, 'Fifty -five! 
 This morning the parson takes a drive: 
 Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 
 Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
 Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 
 "Huddup !!" said the parson; off went they. 
 The parson was working his Sunday's text ; 
 Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
 At what the — Moses — was coming next ; 
 All at once the horse stood still,
 
 318 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE ; OR, THE 
 
 Close by the meet 'n '-house on the hill; 
 First a shiver, and then a thrill, 
 Then something decidedly like a spill, 
 And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 
 At half -past nine by the meet 'n '-house clock, 
 Just the hour of the Earthquake shock ! 
 What do you think the parson found, 
 When he got up and stared around ? 
 The poor old chaise in a heap or mound. 
 As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 
 You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, 
 How it went to pieces all at once, 
 All at once and nothing first, 
 Just as bubbles do when they burst. 
 
 End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
 Logic is logic. That's all I say. 
 
 — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 The Lisbon earthquake occurred on the first of NoTember, 1755. 
 The greater part of the city of Lisbon, Portugal, was destroyed. Be- 
 tween 30,000 and 40,000 people lost their lives, and property 
 amounting to $100,000,000 was destroyed either by the earthquake 
 OT by the fire which immediately followed it. The shock was felt 
 from Scotland to Asia Minor. 
 
 Oeorgius Secundus (King George II) was of the German House 
 of Hanover, and was thoroughly German in character and habits. 
 He was King of Great Britain from 1727 to 1760. 
 
 General Edward Braddock was sent from England with two regi- 
 ments especially to drive the Fi'ench and Indians from Fort Du- 
 quesne (Pittsburgh). The battle was fought July 9, 1755, on the 
 east side of the Monongahela, seven or eight miles from Fort Du- 
 quesne. Braddock's regulars and the colonial militia, under Wash- 
 ington, were defeated and Braddock was killed.
 
 Rhoecus 
 
 319
 
 RHOECUS 321 
 
 RHOECUS 
 
 The Greeks believed in many minor divinities, not 
 dwelling on Olympus, but making their homes among 
 men. These are mentioned in the Homeric poems, the 
 oldest portion of Greek literature. They were the 
 Nymphs, and one of the most interesting species of 
 Nymphs were the Dryads or Nymphs of the Trees. They 
 personified vegetable life. In an ancient Homeric hymn 
 they are described as neither goddesses nor women but 
 partaking of the nature of both. 
 
 On the high hills 
 Lofty they stand ; the deathless sacred grore 
 Men call them, and with iron never cut. 
 
 These beautiful spirits dwelling in the trees had the 
 power to reward or to punish those who befriended or in- 
 jured the trees in which they dwelt. Many legends grew 
 up about these Dryads of the trees, one of the most 
 beautiful being the legend of Rhoecus or Rhoekos. 
 Keightley tells the tale in prose as follows : 
 
 "A man named Rhoekos happening to see an oak just ready to 
 fall to the ground ordered his slaves to prop it up. The Nymph, 
 who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, came to him 
 and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved her life, and at 
 the same time desired him to ask what reward he would. Rhoekos 
 then requested her to permit him to be her lover, and the Nymph 
 acceded to his desire. She at the same time charged him strictly to 
 avoid the society of every other woman, and told him that a bee 
 should be her messenger. 
 
 "One time the bee happened to come to Rhoekos as he was play- 
 ing at draughts (dice) and he made a rough reply. [Another ver- 
 sion says he roughly brushed the bee away.] This so incensed the 
 Nymph that she deprived him of his sight."
 
 322 RHOECUS 
 
 The Dryads sometimes assumed the forms of shepherd- 
 esses, huntresses or peasant girls, but they were supposed 
 to have eome into existence with certain trees and to 
 perish with them. They were always surpassingly beau- 
 tiful. To destroy a tree needlessly was an impious act, 
 sometimes severely punished. 
 
 This simple statement of the old nymphology and the 
 old legend of Rhoekos will serve as a background for 
 James Russell Lowell's beautiful poem. Observe that in 
 Lowell's poem the youth is deprived, not of his physical 
 sight, as in the old legend, but of his spiritual sight. 
 
 FROM RHOECUS 
 # # # * 
 
 A youth named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood. 
 Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, 
 And, feeling pity of so fair a tree. 
 He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, 
 And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 
 But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind 
 That murmxired * ' Rhcecus ! " 'T was as if the leaves, 
 Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it, 
 And, while he paused bewildered, yet again 
 It murmured * * Rhoecus ! ' ' softer than 'a breeze. 
 ITe started and beheld with dizzy eyes 
 What seemed the substance of a happy dream 
 Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow 
 Within the green glooms of the shfJdowy oak. 
 It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fair
 
 RHOECUS 323 
 
 To be a woman, and with eyes too meek 
 
 For any that were wont to mate with gods. 
 
 All naked like a goddess stood she there, 
 
 And like a goddess all too beautiful 
 
 To feel the guilt-bom earthliness of shame. 
 
 * * Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree, ' ' 
 
 Thus she began, dropping her low-toned words 
 
 •Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew, 
 
 * ' And with' it I am doomed to live and die ; 
 
 The rain and sunshine are my caterers. 
 
 Nor have I other bliss than simple life ; 
 
 Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give, 
 
 And with a thankful joy it shall be thine." 
 
 Then Rhcecus, with a flutter at the heart, 
 Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, bold, 
 Answ^ered : * ' What is there that can satisfy 
 The endless eraving of the soul but love ? 
 Give me thy love, or but the hope of that 
 Which must be evermore my nature's goal." 
 After 'a little pause she said again, 
 But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, 
 "I give it, Rhoeous, though a perilous gift; 
 An hour before the sunset meet me here, ' ' 
 And straightway there was nothing he oould see 
 But the green gloom beneath the sihadowy oak, 
 And not a sound came to his straining ears 
 But the low trickling rustle of the leaves. 
 And far away upon an emerald slope 
 The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe.
 
 324 RHOECUS 
 
 Now, in those days of simpleness and faith, 
 
 Men did not think that happj^ things were dreams 
 
 Because they overstepped the narrow bourn 
 
 Of likelihood, but reverently deemed 
 
 Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful 
 
 To be the guerdon of a daring heart. 
 
 So Rhoecus made no doubt that he was blest. 
 
 And all along unto the city 's gate 
 
 Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked, 
 
 The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont, 
 
 And he could scarce Delieve he had not wings. 
 
 Such sunshine seeoned to glitter through his veins 
 
 Insitead of blood, so light he felt and strange. 
 
 Young Rhoecus had a faithful heart enough, 
 But one that in the present dwelt too miuch. 
 And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'er 
 Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that. 
 Like the contented peasant of a vale, 
 Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond. 
 So, haply meeting in the afternoon 
 Some comrades who were playing at the dice, 
 He jo-ined them, and forgot all else beside. 
 
 The dice were rattling at the merriest, 
 And RhoeciTS, who had met but sorry luck, 
 Just lau'ghed in triumph at a happy throw. 
 When through the room there hummed a yellow bee 
 That buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legs 
 As if to light. And Rhoecus laughed and said, 
 Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss,
 
 RHOECUS 325 
 
 "By Venus! does he take me for a rose?" 
 
 And briished him off with rough, impatient hand. 
 
 But still the bee came back, and thrice again 
 
 Rhoecus did beat him off with growing wrath. 
 
 Then through the window flew the wounded bee, 
 
 And Rhoecus, tracking him with angry eyes, 
 
 Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly 
 
 Against the red disk of the setting sun, — 
 
 And instantly the blood sank from his heart, 
 
 As if its very walls had caved away. 
 
 Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth. 
 
 Ran madly through the city and the gate, 
 
 And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade, 
 
 By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim, 
 
 Darkened well-nigh unto the city's wall. 
 
 Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree. 
 
 And, listening fearfully, he heard once more 
 
 The low murmur "Rhoicus!" close at hand: 
 
 Whereat he looked around him, but could see 
 
 Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak. 
 
 Then sighed the voice, ' ' Rhoecus ! nevermore 
 
 Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, 
 
 Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love 
 
 More ripe and bounteous than ever yet 
 
 Filled up with nectar any mortal heart : 
 
 But thou didst scorn my humble messenger, 
 
 And sent 'st him back to me with bruised wings. 
 
 We spirits only show to gentle eyes, 
 
 We ever ask an undivided love, 
 
 And he who scorns the least of Nature's works
 
 326 RHOECUS 
 
 Is theneefortli exiled and shut out from all. 
 Farewell! for thou canst never see me more." 
 
 Then Rhoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud, 
 And cried, "Be pitiful! forgive me yet 
 This once, and I shall never need it more!" 
 "Alas!" the voice returned, " 't is thou art blind, 
 Not I unmerciful; I can forgive, 
 But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes; 
 Only the soul hath power o'er itself." 
 With that again there murmured, "Nevermore!" 
 And Rhoecus after heard no other sound, 
 Except the rattling of the oak 's crisp leaves, 
 Like the long surf upon a distant shore, 
 Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. 
 The night had gathered round him: o'er the plain 
 The city sparkled with its thousand lights, 
 And sounds of revel fell upon his ear 
 Harshly and like a curse ; above the sky, 
 With all its bright sublimity of stars. 
 Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze : 
 Beauty was all around him and delight. 
 But from that eve he was alone on earth. 
 
 — James Russell Lowell.
 
 The Shepherd of King Admet 
 
 us 
 
 827
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 329 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 
 
 The Shepherd of King Admetus, by James Russell 
 Lowell, is founded upon a well-known Greek myth. 
 Apollo was one of the chief gods and dwelt on the summit 
 of Mount Olympus. Here among the other gods Apollo 
 made music with his lyre, for he was the divinity of 
 poetry and music and prophecy as well as the god of 
 light. He had a son, Aesculapius, who became so skilled 
 in medicine that in one instance he was able to restore 
 the dead to life. This was resented by Pluto, and at 
 Pluto's request Zeus, the father of all the gods, struck 
 the physician with lightning and killed him. Apollo was 
 indignant at the destruction of his son and slew one of 
 the workmen who had forged the thunderbolt for Zeus. 
 In order to punish Apollo for this deed, Zeus condemned 
 him to serve a mortal for a year (some versions say eight 
 years). Apollo took the form of a shepherd and went 
 into the service of Admetus, king of Thessaly. 
 
 Here among the mountains and vales of Thessaly he 
 tended the sheep, played upon his lyre, and spoke words 
 of beauty and mystery. He wore the form of a youth 
 and he went in and out among men and ''they made 
 his careless words their law." And after he was dead 
 and gone and the memory of him had grown dim ''earth 
 seemed more sweet to live upon, more full of love, be- 
 cause of him.'* 
 
 This shepherd of the king of Thessaly, Apollo the god 
 of light and song, was the world's first poet; and all
 
 330 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 
 
 true poets since his day have been of his race and blood. 
 Wordsworth says: 
 
 In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretched 
 On the soft grass through half a summer's day, 
 With music lulled his indolent repose ; 
 And, in some fit of weariness, if he. 
 When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear 
 A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds 
 Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched 
 Even from the blazing chariot of tbe Sun 
 A beardless youth who touched a golden lute. 
 And filled the illumined groTCs with ravishment. 
 
 Lowell's poem is a very happy combination of grace, 
 lightness and seriousness. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 
 
 There came a youth upon the earth, 
 
 Some thousand years ago, 
 Whose slender hands were nothing worth, 
 
 Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. 
 
 Upon an empty tortoise-shell 
 
 He stretched some chords, and drew 
 
 IMusic that made men's bosoms swell 
 
 Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew. 
 
 Then King Admetus, one who had 
 
 Pure taste by right divine, 
 Decreed his singing not too bad 
 
 To hear between the cups of wine:
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 331 
 
 And so, well pleased with being soothed 
 
 Into a sweet half-asleep, 
 Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, 
 
 And miade him viceroy o'er his sheep. 
 
 His words were simple words enough, 
 
 And yet he used them so, 
 That what in other mouths was rough 
 
 In his seemed musical and low. 
 
 Men called him but a shiftless youth, 
 
 In whom no good they saw; 
 And yet, unwittingly, in truth, 
 
 They made his careless words their law. 
 
 They knew not how he learned at all, 
 
 For idly, hour by hour, 
 He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, 
 
 Or inused upon a common flower. 
 
 It seemed the loveliness of things 
 
 Did teach him all their use, 
 For, in mere weeds, and stones and springs, 
 
 He found a healing power profuse. 
 
 Men granted that his speech was wise. 
 
 But, when a glance they caught 
 Of his slim grace and woman's eyes. 
 
 They laughed, and called him good-for-naugK.
 
 332 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADiMETUS 
 
 Yet, after he was dead and gone, 
 
 And e 'en his memory dim, 
 Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, 
 
 More full of love, because of him. 
 
 And day by day more holy grew 
 
 Each spot where he had trod, 
 Till after-poets only knew 
 
 Their first-born brother as a god. 
 
 — James Russell Lowell.
 
 The Blessed Damozel 
 
 333
 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 335 
 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 Eossetti's The Blessed Damozel and Poe's The Raven 
 should be read together. In the latter, a man is ex- 
 pressing his mood of hopeless despair over the death of 
 the loved Lenore. Rossetti reverses the situation. The 
 Blessed Damozel expresses the longings of a young 
 woman as she leans out from the ramparts of Heaven 
 and waits for her lover, who is still on earth. The Raven 
 has no ray of hope. The mood of despair is as black as 
 the emblematic bird that sits on the bust of Pallas over 
 the door. The Blessed Damozel is full of sad hope and 
 certain faith — " ' for he will come, ' she said. ' ' 
 
 Rossetti 's poem is steeped in medieval religious mysti- 
 cism. The conception of Heaven, with the angels flying 
 to and fro, the mystic numbers three and seven, the 
 w'hite rose of the saints, Queen Mary and her hand- 
 maidens, is wholly medieval ; and to appreciate the poem 
 in all its tender lovelliness one must give his imagination 
 full sympathetic play \nth these old symbols so rich in 
 their associations with the faith of centuries. Yet the 
 realism is sometimes almost startling, so vividly are the 
 concrete details brought before our eyes. The curled 
 moon flutters like a feather far down the gulf of space ; 
 each prayer is * ' like a little cloud, ' ' and one sees it melt 
 away, being granted; souls go by "like thin flames"; 
 far below, the earth "spins like a fretful midge"; even 
 the rampart of God's House, with its bar of gold over 
 which the waiting maiden leans, seems to be definitely 
 fixed in place and appearance.
 
 336 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 As mysticism and the sense of detailed fact are so 
 strikingly combined, so are the impressions of infinite 
 distance and of nearness. The Blessed Damozel stands 
 over the sheer depths beyond where space begins, so 
 high that looking downward she scarce can see the sun, 
 and the paths of the angels are vague in distant spheres, 
 and yet the lover lying under the tree on earth is so 
 near that he can see her smiles and hear her tears. 
 With such consummate art are these impressions of dis- 
 tance and nearness combined that the perspective is al- 
 ways true. 
 
 But even more worthy of study and of admiration 
 than the combination of mysticism with realism or the 
 blending of the feeling of infinite distance with the sense 
 of nearness is the portrayal of human love in the courts 
 of Heaven. As pure as the angels it is — as pure as 
 Mary and her saints — and yet it is the very love where- 
 with the Blessed Damozel had loved when she and her 
 lover went hand in hand upon the earth — the same 
 love, only grown stronger and purer. Notice how the 
 sense of its beauty, its purity, and its strength makes 
 her brave to say that when he comes she will take him 
 by the hand and lead him straight to the very throne of 
 God. As infinite space and a little patch of earth meet 
 in this poem, so do love immortal and human love. Not 
 even Dante has portrayed the divine passion with more 
 boldness or more delicacy. 
 
 And so we may say that although tlie poem is as it 
 were a mystic vision from out the I\Tiddle Ages, it 
 touches the very springs of life and love to-day. It is 
 universal. Whether human love shall have the power
 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 337 
 
 to "carry over" beyond the gold bar of the ramparts of 
 Heaven, is a question very close to the most vital in- 
 terests of every man 's life. 
 
 The poem is eminently pictorial, as many of its au- 
 thor's poems are. For Rossetti was a painter as well as 
 a poet, and one of his large pictures has for its subject 
 The Blessed Damozel. Indeed he has two pictures il- 
 lustrating this theme. The figure, the Blessed Damozel, 
 is life-size. She is elad in a garment of pale green and 
 her hair is deep gold. Below the bar on which she 
 leans are two angels, with wings of light reddisih purple, 
 holding branches of palm. In the background are 
 countless figures of lovers, re-united. These are omitted 
 from Rossetti 's replica of the original picture. In a 
 lower panel of the picture, the lover lies under a tree, 
 his head resting on his hand. He is looking up ex- 
 pectantly. A sword rests by his side in medieval 
 knightly fashion. 
 
 The reader will, of course, not fail to notice that the 
 lines in parentheses are always the words of the lover on 
 earth, and not of the Blessed Damozel, and that the 
 *'ripe com" in the beautiful figure of the second stanza 
 is the English use of the word corn, meaning wheat. 
 The ' ' Dove ' ' in the fifteenth stanza is the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Stopford Brooke says: "It is a lovely thing, as ex- 
 quisite in tenderness and sublimated thought as it is in 
 form and finish. He was only twenty when he wrote it, 
 and his art is as true and fine in it as in the best of the 
 later sonnets. So swiftly does genius grow to its full 
 height. The subject is noble and appeals to universal 
 feeling. No one who has loved and lost, and waits here
 
 338 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 below, or there above, but must have cherished its main 
 thought aud felt its main emotion. The ornament is 
 beautiful, and is charged with human feeling. It is not 
 the work of fancy but of imagination piercing with vital 
 power into the heart of the subject, and radiating new 
 thought, new feeling, through every verse, even every 
 line." 
 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 The blessed damozel leaned out 
 
 From the gold bar of Heaven ; 
 Her eyes were deeper than the depth 
 
 Of waters stilled at even ; 
 She had three lilies in her hand, 5 
 
 And the stars in her hair were seven. 
 
 Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, 
 
 No wrought flowers did adorn, 
 But a white rose of Mary's gift, 
 
 For service meetly worn ; 10 
 
 Her hair that lay along her back 
 
 Was yellow like ripe corn. 
 
 Her seemed she scarce had been a day 
 
 One of God's choristers; 
 The wonder was not yet quite gone 15 
 
 From that still look of hers; 
 Albeit, to them she left, her day 
 
 Had counted as ten years.
 
 THE BLESSED DAINIOZEL 339 
 
 (To one, it is ten years of years. 
 
 . . . Yet now, and in this place, 20 
 
 Surely she leaned o 'er me — her hair 
 
 Fell all about my face. . . . 
 Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves. 
 
 The whole year sets apace.) 
 
 It was the rampart of God's house 25 
 
 That she was standing on; 
 By God built over the sheer depth 
 
 The which is Space begun ; 
 So high, that looking downward thence 
 
 She scarce could see the sun. 30 
 
 It lies in Heaven, across the flood 
 
 Of ether, as a bridge. 
 Beneath, the tides of day and night 
 
 With flame and darkness ridge 
 The void, as low as where this earth 35 
 
 Spins like a fretful midge. 
 
 Around her, lovers, newly met 
 
 'Mid deathless love's acclaims, 
 Spoke evermore among themselves 
 
 Their heart-remembered names ; 40 
 
 And the souls mounting up to God 
 Went by her like thin flames. 
 
 And still she bowed herself and stooped 
 
 Out of the circling charm; 
 Until her bosom must have made 45
 
 340 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 The bar she leaned on warm, 
 And the lilies lay as if asleep 
 Along her bended arm. 
 
 From the fixed place of Heaven she saw 
 
 Time like a pulse shake fierce 50 
 
 Through all the world. Her gaze still strove 
 Within the gulf to pierce 
 
 It's path ; and now she spoke as when 
 The stars sang in their spheres. 
 
 The sun was gone now ; the curled moon 55 
 
 "Was like a little feather 
 Fluttering far down the gulf; and now 
 
 She spoke through the still weather. 
 Her voice was like the voice the stars 
 
 Had when they sang together. 60 
 
 (Ah sweet ! Even now, in that bird's song, 
 
 Strove not her accents there, 
 Fain to be hearkened ? "When those bells 
 
 Possessed the mid-day air, 
 Strove not her steps to reach my side 65 
 
 Down all the echoing stair?) 
 
 "I wish that he were come to me. 
 
 For he will come," she said. 
 * ' Have I not prayed in Heaven ? — on earth, 
 
 Lord, Lord, has he not prayed? 70 
 
 Are not two prayers a perfect strength? 
 
 And shall I feel afraid?
 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 341 
 
 "When round his head the aureole clings, 
 
 And he is clothed in white, 
 I'll take his hand and go with him 75 
 
 To the deep wells of light; 
 As unto a stream we will step down, 
 
 And bathe there in God's sight. 
 
 * * We two will stand beside that shrine, 
 
 Ocoult, withheld, untrod, 80 
 
 "Whose la-mps are stirred continually 
 
 With prayer sent up to God ; 
 And see our old prayers, granted, melt 
 
 Each like a little cloud. 
 
 * ' We two will lie i ' the shadow of 85 
 
 That living mystic tree 
 Within whose secret growth the Dove 
 
 Is sometimes felt to be, 
 While every leaf that His plumes touch 
 
 Saith His Name audibly. 90 
 
 * ' And I myself will teach to him, 
 
 I myself, lying so, 
 The songs I sing here ; which his voice 
 
 Shall pause in, 'hushed and slow, 
 And find some knowledge at each pause, 95 
 
 Or some new thing to know." 
 
 (Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st! 
 Yea, one -wast thou wath me 
 That once of old. But shall God lift
 
 342 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 
 
 To endless unity 100 
 
 The soul whose likeness with thy soul 
 "Was but its love for thee?) 
 
 ""We tAvo, " she said, "will seek the groves 
 
 "Where the lady ]\Tary is, 
 "With her five handmaidens, whose names 105 
 
 Are five sweet symphonies, 
 Cecily, Gertrude, ]\Iagdalen, 
 
 Margaret, and Rosalys. 
 
 "Circlewdse sit they, with bound locks 
 
 And foreheads garlanded, 110 
 
 Into the fine cloth, white like flame, 
 "Weaving the golden thread, 
 
 To fashion the birth-robes for them 
 "Who are just born, being dead. 
 
 "He shall fear, haply, and be dumb: 115 
 
 Then ^^^ll I lay my cheek 
 To his, and tell about our love, 
 
 Not once abashed or weak ; 
 And the dear IMother w\\] approve 
 
 My pride, and let me speak. 120 
 
 "Herself shall bring us, hand in hand 
 
 To Him round whom all souls 
 Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads 
 
 Bowed with, their aureoles: 
 And angels meeting us shall sing 125 
 
 To their citherns and citoles.
 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 343 
 
 "There will I ask of Christ the Lord 
 
 Thus much for him and me : — 
 Only to live as once on earth 
 
 With Love, only to be, 130 
 
 As then awhile, forever now 
 
 Together, -I and he. ' ' 
 
 She gazed and listened and then said, 
 
 Less sad of speech than mild, — 
 "All this is when he comes." She ceased. 135 
 
 The light thrilled towards her, fill'd 
 With angels in strong level flight. 
 
 Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd. 
 
 (I saw her smile.) But soon their path 
 Was vague in distant spheres : 140 
 
 And then she cast her arms along 
 The golden barriers, 
 
 And laid her face between her hands. 
 And wept. (I heard her tears.) 
 
 — Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
 
 A Group of Sonnets 
 
 345
 
 A GROUP OF SONNETS 347 
 
 "A GROUP OF SONNETS 
 
 Do you know what to look for when you read a sonnet ? 
 A sonnet is a complete lyric of fourteen rhymed lines, 
 each line containing five time-units or feci, composed of 
 alternately unaccented and accented syllables. Such a 
 line or verse is called iambic pentameter. The grouping 
 and lining of these fourteen lines depends upon whether 
 the sonnet is of the "Italian tj^pe" or of the "English 
 type," for there are two distinct sonnet-forms in English 
 literature — besides «nany variations which will not be 
 discussed here. Before one can read a sonnet intelli- 
 gently one must know the nature and purpose of the 
 sonnet-form to which it belongs. 
 
 What is known as the Italian sonnet-form consists of 
 fourteen lines divided into two groups, the first of eight 
 lines (called the octave) and the second of six lines 
 (called the sestet). The whole poem contains a single 
 idea or emotion, but at the end of the octave there is a 
 distinct turn or change in this idea or emotion. The 
 octave sometimes presents a situation and the sestet a 
 comment ; or they may be a fact and an application ; or 
 a problem and a solution ; or a premise and a conclu- 
 sion. Whatever we may call them, the flow and ebb of 
 the main current of the poem are distinctly marked, the 
 tone of the last group of six lines being different from the 
 first group of eight lines. In reading a sonnet of this 
 type one should look for this division in its structure 
 and this change in its tone. The arrangement of the
 
 348 A GROUP OF SONNETS 
 
 rhymes in the first group is always the same ; in the sec- 
 ond group it may vary slightly. 
 
 The Italian form of the sonnet may be seen to good 
 effect in Wordsworth's It Is a Beauteous Evening. The 
 octave (the first eight lines) describes a tranquil and 
 brooding evening by the sea. The sestet (the last six 
 lines) is a tribute to the poet's sister Dorothy, sug- 
 gested by the influence of the scene upon himself. It is 
 a situation and a comment. The emotional strain of the 
 poem is continuous, but there is a turn in it at the 
 division between octave and sestet. The flow and the 
 return are very distinct. In the first part the reflective 
 nature of the poet is revealed, in the second part the 
 childlike nature of his sister. 
 
 It is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; 
 
 The holy time is quiet as a nun 
 
 Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
 Is sinking down in its tranquility ; 
 The gentleness of heaven is on the sea ; 
 
 Listen ! the mighty being is awake 
 
 And doth with his eternal motion make 
 A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 
 
 Dear child ! dear girl that walkest with me here, 
 If thou appear untouch 'd by solemn thought 
 Thy nature is not therefore less divine: 
 Thou licst in Abraham's bosom all the year, 
 
 And worship 'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 
 God being with thee when we know it not. 
 
 — William Wordsworth.
 
 A GROUL' OF SONNETS 349 
 
 In Milton 's noble sonnet on his blindness, the rhetorical 
 division occurs in the middle of the eighth line. The 
 octave presents the situation: his blindness; the sestet, 
 the philosophical comment : service through waiting. 
 There is one eentral idea or emotional strain, but it has 
 two movements : the flow of the octave and the return of 
 the sestet. 
 
 When I consider how my light is spent 
 
 Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
 And that one talent which is death to hide 
 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
 
 To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
 My true account, lest he returning chide — 
 Doth God exact day-labour, light denied? 
 
 I fondly ask : — But patience, to prevent 
 
 That murmur, soon replies ; God doth not need 
 Either man's work, or his own gifts : who best 
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: His state 
 Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed 
 And post 'er land and ocean without rest : — 
 They also serve who only stand and wait. 
 
 — John Milton. 
 
 A slight variation of the Italian form is found in 
 Keats 's Grasshopper and Cricket. The continuous theme 
 of the persistence of poetry on earth is developed in two 
 separate applications or illustrations, one in the octave 
 and one in the sestet. It is a twofold expression of the 
 same thought ; and yet the latter division may be said to
 
 350 A GROUP OF SONNETS 
 
 contain a comiment upon the former in the statement that 
 the cricket's song reminds one of the grasshopper's song 
 among the grassy hills. 
 
 The poetry of earth is never dead: 
 
 When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 
 And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 
 
 From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead ; 
 
 That is the Grasshopper 's — he takes the lead 
 In summer luxury, — he has never done 
 "With his delights ; for when tired out with fun 
 
 He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 
 
 The poetry of earth is ceasing never: 
 On a lone winter evening, 'when the frost 
 
 Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills 
 The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, 
 And seems to one in drowsiness half lost. 
 The Grasshopper 's among some grassy hills. 
 
 — : John Keats. 
 
 Rossetti's powerful lyric called Lost Days is a perfect 
 example of the pure Italian sonnet-form. In the first 
 eight lines he imagines his lost days lying in the street 
 as they fell, and asks, if he could see them, would they 
 be wheat or coins or drops of blood or spilt water ? 
 
 The comment or application follows in the conclud- 
 ing six lines, and the reader perceives that the tone is 
 distinctly different. Each day is a murdered self that 
 cries aloud through all eternity. The flow and ebb in 
 the wave of thought are presented with striking artistic 
 effect.
 
 A GROUP OF SONNETS 351 
 
 The lost days of my life until to-day, 
 What were they, could I see them on the street 
 Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat 
 
 Sown once for food but trodden into clay? 
 
 Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? 
 Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet ? 
 Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat 
 
 The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? 
 
 I do not see them here ; but after death 
 God knows I know the faces I shall see, 
 
 Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 
 "I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?" 
 
 ' * And I — and I — thyself, " (lo ! each one saith) 
 **And thou thyself to all eternity!" 
 
 — Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 
 (Compare this sonnet, in both form and substance, with Emer- 
 son's Days.) 
 
 The other type of sonnet is called the English or the 
 Shakespearean form. Here the fourteen lines are divided 
 into three groups of four lines each (quatrains), and a 
 couplet. Each of these quatrains presents a more or 
 less distinct thought, and the concluding two lines 
 (couplet) bind them all together — there is a gradual 
 rise of emotion and thought to an epigrammatic climax in 
 the last two lines. Thus the whole poem leaves a single 
 impression, just as the Italian sonnet-form does. In the 
 Skakespearean sonnet the verses rhyme as follows: first 
 and third, second and fourth, and so on — up to the last 
 two which rhyme with each other.
 
 352 A GROUP OF SONNETS 
 
 Shakespeare's beautiful 73rd Sonnet illustrates 
 admirably the type of sonnet called the English, or the 
 Shakespearean form. The general theme is love or 
 friendship in old age. The idea of old age is presented 
 in three different comparisons. The first quatrain is 
 a picture of autumn with its naked boughs from which 
 the singing birds have departed. The second quatrain is 
 a description of twilight and the approaching night. In 
 the third group of four lines a dying fire is shown on 
 its death-bed of ashes. Then comes the final couplet bind- 
 ing the whole poem into a unit with the thought — 
 
 This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, 
 To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 
 
 That time of year thou may'st in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang 
 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 
 Bare ruin's choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
 
 In me thou seest the glowing of such fire. 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie 
 
 As the deathbed whereon it must expire, 
 
 Consumed with that which it was nourish 'd by :
 
 A GROUP OF SONNETS 353 
 
 — This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more 
 
 strong, 
 To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 
 
 — William Shakespeare, 
 
 Shakespeare's famous 29th Sonnet has for its theme 
 the consolation of love or friendship. The mood of de- 
 spair is presented through different comparisons and 
 with deepening intensity to the middle of the third qua- 
 train, when there comes a sudden burst of joy like the 
 singing of a lark at heaven's gate. The explanation 
 comes in the closing couplet, which gives unity to the 
 poem and serves also as an epigrammatic climax. 
 
 When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes 
 
 I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
 
 And look upon myself and curse my fate ; 
 
 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
 
 Featured like him, like him with friends possest, 
 
 Desiring this man's art, and that man's vscope, 
 With what I most enjoy contented least ; 
 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 Haply I think on Thee — and then my state, 
 
 Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's, gatej
 
 354 A GROUP OF SONNETS 
 
 For thy sweet love remember 'd, such wealth brings 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings, 
 
 — "William Shakespeare. 
 
 By reading aloud these examples of the two typioai sonnet-forms, 
 one can test for himself the statement made by Theodore Watts 
 Dunton that the purpose of the Italian form is to produce a certain 
 melodic effect on the ear, and that "the quest of the Shakespearean 
 sonnet is sweetness." 
 
 Because of the brevity of the sonnet, much more is 
 suggested than expressed ; hence it calls for the use of 
 our imagination. There is but one idea, but it nearly 
 always has far-reaching suggestions. Some of the great- 
 est poems in English literature are in this form, some of 
 the great minds choosing it to express the concentrated 
 passion of their lives. ' ' A sonnet is like a cameo, rich in 
 material, and delicate and conventional in detail. ' '
 
 Biographical Notes of the Authors 
 Represented 
 
 355
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 357 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE AUTHORS 
 REPRESENTED 
 
 Arnold, Matthew. — Born at Laleham, England, 1822, 
 and was buried there 1888. His father was Dr. Thomas 
 Arnold, the famous head master of Rugby. Arnold was 
 educated at Winchester and Rugby and at Balliol Col- 
 lege, Oxford. After teaching at Rugby for a short time 
 he was appointed inspector of schools under the govern- 
 ment, and served with unflinching faithfulness for 
 thirty-five years. For ten years of this time he was also 
 Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Arnold is famous, not 
 only as a great poet, but also as a great critic. His 
 poetry expresses the spiritual unrest of the age with rare 
 grace and power, and is characterized by classic re- 
 straint and perfection. Read Dover Beach, The Scholar 
 Gypsy, Philomela, Bnghy Chapel, Sorai and Rustum, 
 Thyrsis, and Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. As 
 the student's literary taste improves, his liking for Ar- 
 nold increases. 
 
 Browning, Robert. — Born May 7, 1812, at Camber- 
 well, England. He was educated privately, devoted 
 himself wholly to literature, and died in 1889, in Italy, 
 where he spent muob of his life. His wife was Eliza- 
 beth Barrett Browning, also a distinguished poet. 
 Browning's fame came slowly, his genius was much dis- 
 puted by critics, and for a long time he was ignored by 
 the public. His language is eccentric and sometimes 
 obscure, but his thought is deep and subtle ; and Brown-
 
 358 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE 
 
 ing and Tennyson stand side by side as the great poets 
 of the latter part of the nineteenth century. His theme 
 is always the human soul, generally studied under ex- 
 ceptional cireuuiistances. The Ring and the Book, 
 Pippa Passes, My Last Duchess, Prospice, Said, Bahhi 
 Ben Ezra, The Laboratory, Childe lioland to the Dark 
 Tower Came, Abt Voglcr, The Bishop Orders His Tomh 
 at St. Praxed's Church, and Andrea del Sarto, are some 
 of the great things written by him. 
 
 Burns, Robert. — Born January 25, 1759, in Ayrshire, 
 Scotland, the son of a small farmer. The family was 
 poor and the son received but little regular education ; 
 he was "a hardworked plowboy. " But he was a great 
 reader, having a book before him even at meal times. 
 He early began writing songs of country life that at- 
 tracted attention, and he was recognized and lionized, as 
 a real genius. In 1789 he was appointed exciseman for 
 the government. He died July 21, 1796, only thirty- 
 seven years of age, having led a life mixed of misery, re- 
 morse, and happiness, his few peaceful years being those 
 he lived as a farmer in Dumfrieshire wdth his wife, Jean 
 Armour. Like Poe, although his life was miserable, his 
 fame is immortal. His love songs are among the finest 
 ever written. The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tarn 
 O'Shanter, The Tiva Dogs, To a Mountain Daisy, To a 
 Mouse, To Mary in Heaven, Highland Mary, Ye Banks 
 and Braes 0' Bonnie Doon, Flow Gently Sweet Afton, 
 O My Luve's like a Red Red Rose, Scots ivha hae wi' 
 Wallace Bled, and Is There for Honest Poverty, are the 
 glory of Scotland's literature.
 
 AUTHORS RErRESENTED 359 
 
 Byron, George Gordon (Lord). — Born in London, 
 Januaiy 22, 1788, and died of a fever at Missolonghi, 
 Greece, October 19, 1824, while aiding the Greeks to free 
 themselves from Turkish despotism. By birth he was 
 entitled to a seat in the English House of Lords, but he 
 spent his life in travel and in writing. His first book 
 of poems, Hours of Idleness, was ridiculed by critics, but 
 he lived to see himself the most famous author in all 
 Europe, although he died at thirty-six. His personality 
 as much as his literary genius contributed to the spell 
 which he thrcAV over the world. Proud, passionate, 
 handsome, fascinating, he captivated all who came 
 within his reach. The story of his own exploits was as 
 interesting to the public as anything he wrote. After 
 his death his fame greatly diminished, but his place in 
 the literary world is still a large one. Childe Harold's 
 Pilgrimage and Don Juan are his greatest productions. 
 His greatest dramas are Manfred and Cain. Among his 
 shorter poems The Prisoner of Chillo7i, The Destruction 
 of Sennacherib, She Walks in Beauty, To Thomas Moore, 
 are representative. 
 
 Cowper, William.— Born 1731 and died 1800. His 
 name is inseparably associated with the little English 
 midland village of Olney, though as a law student he 
 lived in London. He was a gentle and religious spirit, 
 depressed by melancholy. He had fits of insanity and 
 he attempted suicide, but he had also a fine touch of 
 humor, as everybody knows from his amusing ballad 
 John Gilpin's Ride. His own line — 
 
 I was a stricken deer that left the herd long since — ■
 
 360 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE 
 
 is the very essence of pathos. His longest poem is The 
 Task, but his best poems are Luics on Receipt of My 
 Mother's Picture, Loss of the Royal George, To Mary, 
 and The Castaway — the last being a ery of despair. 
 
 Dryden, John. — Born in Northamptonshire, England, 
 1606, educated at Cambridge, and died, 1687. He was 
 the greatest literary figure of the Restoration Period. 
 He was critic, poet, dramatist, and the founder of mod- 
 ern prose. His poems, mostly satirical, are not generally 
 read to-day except by students, but Alexander's Feast 
 and one or two others still hold their place in popular 
 favor. He represented the spirit of his age, and his 
 masterful mind sums up for us its whole mental temper. 
 His artistic skill and literary quality at their best may 
 be seen in the ode Alexander's Feast in this volume. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo.— Born May 25, 1803, in 
 Boston, where he resided for thirty years, and died April 
 27, 1882, at Concord, where his home was the literary 
 centre of America. He was graduated from Harvard in 
 1821, and some years later from the Harvard Divinity 
 School. For a few years he engaged in the active min- 
 istry of the Unitarian Church in Boston. The rest of 
 his life was devoted to lecturing, writing and thinking, 
 with three visits to Europe. He was our greatest seer 
 and our most original thinker. Perhaps America has 
 produced no finer mind than his. His writings are of 
 two classes — essays and poems, for his lectures are really 
 essays. Such poems as The Problem, The Rhodora, The 
 Concord Hymn, Each and All, Brahma, The Snow 
 Storm, Good Bye, Wood Notes, and Teiinimis are im-
 
 AUTHORS REPRESENTED S61 
 
 mortal. Among his greatest essays are Nature, The 
 American Scholar, Self-Reliance, Friendship, Compen- 
 sation, History, and Character. No other writer has so 
 enriched American thought; no other writer has had 
 such influence upon the best minds of the country. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver. — Bom in County Longford, Ire- 
 land, 1728, spent most of his life in London, and died 
 there 1774. He was educated at Trinity College, Dub- 
 lin, and at Edinburgh, studied medicine, wandered about 
 on the Continent, and tried his hand at many things. 
 When he took up authorship for a livelihood he did 
 much hack w^ork, but he found time to add to the glory 
 of English literature by writing The Traveller, The De- 
 serted Village, The Vicar of Wakefield, The Good- 
 Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer. The Vicar was 
 one of the earliest of English novels and is still a prime 
 favorite, while She Stoops to Conquer still pleases thou- 
 sands from the amateur or the regular stage. 
 
 Gray, Thomas. — Born 1716, died 1771, and was 
 buried at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, the scene of 
 his famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Most of 
 his life he lived as a scholar and a recluse at Cambridge 
 University, and he was the greatest scholar among the 
 English writers of his time. He wrote very little, but 
 his intellectual interests were of wide range, covering 
 ancient and modern literature, music, painting, archi- 
 tecture, and natural science. His Elegy is the most 
 popular poem in the English language. Other im- 
 X>ortant poems are The Progress of Poesy, On a Distant 
 Prospect of Eaton College, and The Bard.
 
 3G2 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE 
 
 Herrick, Robert. — Born 1591 in London, but spent 
 most of his life as vicar of a country church in Devon- 
 shire. His poems mostly deal with the simple merry- 
 makings of country life, but some of them are of a re- 
 ligious oharacter. The joy of unspoiled rural living is 
 the dominant note in his most exquisite lyrics, for he 
 seems to have dwelt always in Arcadia. Corinna's Go- 
 ing a-Maying, Night Piece to Julia, and Gather Ye Rose- 
 huds are among his best. The Litany is doubtless the 
 masterpiece among his religious poems. Herrick died 
 1674, at the age of 83. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell. — Born in Cambridge, IMass- 
 achusetts, August 29, 1809, and died in Boston in 1894. 
 He was educated at Harvard, graduating ihere in the 
 famous class of 1829. For thirty-five years he was pro-- 
 fessor of anatomy and physiology in that institution. 
 He was a p'oet, an essayist, a novelist, a man of science, a 
 wit, a humorist, a teacher — and famous in everything lie 
 tried. His writings are the best representation in our 
 literature of the cultured life of Boston. "He was the 
 laureate of Harvard and of Boston;" In poetry his best 
 work is The Chamhered Nautilus, The Last Leaf, Old 
 Ironsides, The One-Hoss Shay, and The Living Temple. 
 His informal essaj^s are grouped in the Autocrat Series 
 ■ — The Autocrat at the BreaJifast Table, The Professor 
 at the Breakfast Table, The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 
 and Over the Teacups. The latter was written when he 
 was eighty years of age. His novels are Elsie Venner, 
 The Guardian Angel, and A Mortal Antipathy, all deal- 
 ing with the problem of heredity. Holmes was not a
 
 AUTHORS REPRESENTED 363 
 
 profound or original thinker, but he knew many sides of 
 life remarkably well and he told what he knew with 
 great grace and polish. 
 
 Keats, John. — Born in London, October 29, 1795. 
 Was apprenticed for five years to a surgeon, but took to 
 verse-making and abandoned the profession of surgery. 
 His health was not robust and in 1820 he went to Italy. 
 He died there in 1821 of consumption and was buried in 
 the Protestant cemetery at Rome, Although he died at 
 twenty-five Matthew Arnold classes him with Shakes- 
 peare. Certainly so great a name in poetry was never 
 made so young. There is nothing greater of their kind 
 in English literature than the Ode to a Nightingale, Ode 
 on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, On First Looking into 
 Chapman's Homer, La Belle Dame sans Merci, The Eve 
 of St. Agnes, and Lamia. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. — Born at Portland, 
 ]\raine, February 27, 1807, was graduated from Bowdoin 
 College in 1825, studied for the next three years in 
 France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, taught modern 
 languages for five years at Bowdoin, again studied two 
 years abroad, and then began his work as professor of 
 modern languages at Harvard, which he continued until 
 1854. From that date until his death, in Cambridge, in 
 1882, he devoted himself to literary work. While 
 abroad and during his career as a college professor he 
 wrote much in both verse and prose. He is the most 
 widely read of American poets, standing supreme as the 
 poet of the heart and the home. He added beauty, 
 grace, sentiment and European culture to American
 
 864 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE 
 
 poetry. Evangeline, Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles 
 Standish, The Rainy Day, The Skeleton in Armor, Excel- 
 sior, The Village Blacksmith, Th^. Psahn of Life, the Old 
 Clock on the Stairs, The Arrow and the Song, The Day 
 Is Done, Paul Revere' s Ride, The Building of the Ship, 
 The Bridge and The Wreck of the Hesperus, are some 
 of his poems that are familiar everywhere. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell. — Born in Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, February 22, 1819, in the old mansion at Elm- 
 wood, where he passed his life and where he died in 1891. 
 He was graduated from Harvard in 1838. In 1840 he 
 was admitted to the bar, but never practiced, for he at 
 once devoted himself to literature. For twenty years, 
 beginning in 1857, he was professor of modern languages 
 at Harvard, succeeding Longfellow. Like Longfellow he 
 had prepared himself by studying abroad. He was one 
 of the founders, and for the first five years editor, of the 
 Atlantic Monthly, and later was one of the editors of the 
 North American Review. In 1877 he was appointed Min- 
 ister to Spain, and in 1880 was transferred to London. 
 Lowell was our greatest literary critic, one of our great- 
 est scholars, and in some respects our greatest poet. At 
 his death in 1891 he was generally considered the fore- 
 most citizen of the country. The Vision of Sir Launfal, 
 The Biglow Papers, A Fable for Critics, The Commemo- 
 ration Ode, Tinder the Willoivs, The First Snow Fall, An 
 Indian Summer Reverie, Under the Old Elm, Rhoecus 
 and The Cathedral represent his best poetry. His Es- 
 says in Criticism are the high water mark of American 
 criticism.
 
 AUTHORS REPRESENTED 305 
 
 Milton, John. — Born in Bread Street, London, De- 
 cember 9, 1608, and died in that city, 1674. Next to 
 Shakespeare he was the greatest of English poets. He 
 was educated at Cambridge, where he made his determina- 
 tion to be a poet and to devote his time wholly to lofty 
 themes. Twenty years of his life were spent in a pamph- 
 let war on the civil and religious abuses of his time, and 
 as Latin secretary to Cromwell's government, but Co- 
 mas, LycidaSy L' Allegro, and II Penseroso had estab- 
 lished his fame. When his "duties as a patriot" were 
 done he turned to Paradise Lost and made the greatest 
 epic in the language. It was published in 1667. This 
 was followed by Paradise Regained. Both of these were 
 written when he was totally blind. Milton's whole life 
 is a great epic in itself, and a study of it thrills one with 
 admiration for the life he lived no less than for the 
 sublime poetry whioh he wrote. 
 
 Rossetti, D-ante Gabriel. — Born in London 1828, of 
 three-fourths Italian and one-fourth English blood, edu- 
 cated at Oxford, died 1882. He was eminent both as a 
 painter and as a. poet. Many of his poems are full of 
 medieval charm, and they all have striking pictorial 
 qualities. The Blessed Damozel, Sister Helen, and The 
 King's Tragedy are his best. Rossetti had remarkable 
 command of the sonnet form; this is shown in his The 
 House of Life, a hundred and one sonnets dealing with 
 love. His personality was exceptionally attractive and 
 commanding, and he was one of the most interesting fig- 
 ures of his time.
 
 3GG BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE 
 
 Shakespeare, William. — Born at Stratford-on-Avon, 
 England, April 23, 1564, and died there April 23, 1616. 
 He attended a school of academic grade. In 1582 he mar- 
 ried Anne Hathaway, daughter of a neighboring farmer. 
 In 1585 he went to London, where for twenty years he 
 made his home, employed in some capacity at one of the 
 playhouses, later as a member of the company, and in 
 writing his immortal dramas. He played principal parts 
 in his own dramas, which followed one another in rapid 
 succession. He returned to Stratford-on-Avon about 
 1610 or 1612 in good circumstances. Shakespeare's name 
 is the greatest in English letters. Hamlet, Macbcih, 
 Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Twelfth 
 Night, and Lear are a part of the thought of the English- 
 speaking world. He was buried in the parish church at 
 Stratford, and his tomb bears this inscription, written 
 by himself : 
 
 "Good friend for Jesus sake forbear 
 To dig the dust enclosed here ; 
 Blest be the man that spares these stones 
 And curst be he that moves my bones." 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe. — Born 1792, the son of Sir 
 
 Timothy Shelley of the eountj^ of Sussex, England, and 
 was drowned 1822 in the Gulf of Leghorn on the Medi- 
 terranean. His body was burned on the shore. Lord 
 Byron and other friends being present, and his ashes were 
 buried near the grave of Keats in the little Protestant 
 cemetery in Rome. Shelley studied at Eton and Oxford, 
 but was expelled from Oxford because of a tract on athe- 
 ism. He was the poet of humanity in revolt, and he 
 -was the most gifted lyric poet that England has pro-
 
 AUTHORS REPRESENTED 367 
 
 duced. Tlioiig-li reviled during his lifetime, his fame 
 now "fills the earth." Ode to the West Wind, The Cloud, 
 Alastor, Arethusa, Stanzas Writte^i in Dejection near 
 Naples, Prometheus Unbound, and Adonais (in memory 
 of Keats) give an idea of the wonderful world of imagi- 
 nation in which Shelley lived. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred (Lord). — Born August 6, 1809, at 
 Somersby, England, educated at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, and devoted his whole life to poetry. His reputa- 
 tion grew steadily. In 1850 he became Poet Laureate. 
 Three years later he took up his residence at Farringford 
 in the Isle of Wight, which was his home the rest of his 
 life. In 1883 he was raised to the Peerage. The story 
 of his life is simple, but for more than half a century 
 "he held the poetic supremacy almost unchallenged," 
 and his name is one of the half dozen chief names in 
 English poetry. He died October 6, 1892, and was buried 
 with unequaled solemnity by the side of Chaucer in 
 Westminster Abbey. He was the most representative 
 poet of the last half of the 19th century. His greatest 
 poems are The Idylls of the King, In Memoriayn, LocJcsley 
 Hall, The Palace of Art, The Lotus-Eaters, The Brook, 
 Sir Galahad, Break, Break, Break, Ulysses, The Vision 
 of Sin, and Crossing the Bar. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. — Bom 1770 at Cockermouth 
 on the Derwent in the county of Cumberland, England, 
 and died 1850 at Rydal Mount in the Lake District and 
 was buried at Grasmere. He was the greatest of the Eng- 
 lish nature poets, the poet of the ne^v democracy, and, 
 in his own sphere, the greatest of English bards. He
 
 368 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 
 
 was supremely the poet of nature as Shakespeare was 
 the poet of man. He was educated at Cambridge, visited 
 France during the time of the Revolution, returned to 
 England and settled in the beautifiil Lake District, where 
 he lived the most of his life. His genius was influenced 
 by his sister Dorothy, by Coleridge, and by nature. In 
 him we have a great example of plain living and high 
 thinking. Such poems as The Solitary Reaper, The Daffo- 
 dils, Tintern Aihey, Ode on Immortality, She Was a 
 Phantom of Delight, Michael, To Duty, and many of his 
 sonnets add immortal glory to English poetry. His two 
 long poems, The Prelude and The Excursion, contain 
 many sandy patches, together with much superb poetry. 
 He was made Poet Laureate in 1843. The little volume 
 by him and Coleridge called Lyrical Ballads and pub- 
 lished in 1798, marks the beginning of a new era — the 
 second great creative period — in English literature.
 
 FAMOUS POEMS EXPLAINED 
 
 By WAITMAN BARBE, A. M., LiTT. D. 
 
 Professor of English in West Virginia University. 
 Cloth, gilt top, 237 pages $1.00 postpaid 
 
 Clear explanations, or the historical settings, are given of Poe's 
 The Rai'cn, and I'lalume; Byron's The Destruction of Sennacherib, 
 The l\Ii!/ht Before Waterloo, and The Isles of Greece; Emerson's Each 
 and All; Whitman's O Captain! My Captain!; Holmes's Old Ironsides, 
 and The Chambered Nautilus; Arnold's Armageddon; Bryant's To a 
 Waterfowl ; Whittier's King Solomon and the Ants; Burns's Bannock- 
 burn; Kipling's Recessional ; Miller's Columbus; Southey's The Battle 
 of Blenheim; Campbell's Ilohenlinden; Wolfe's Burial of Sir John 
 Moore — and more than forty others. 
 
 SOME CRITICAL OPINIONS. 
 
 A full understanding of many of the finest pieces in the standard 
 readers is Impossible without some help from the outside and this help 
 the teachers are generally not able to give without maljing the study 
 and research for which they have neither the time nor the opportunity. 
 "Famous Poems Explained," by Waitman Barbe, Litt.D., will come as 
 a great boon to all such teachers. — Florida School Exponent. 
 
 "Famous Poems Explained" is not an ordinary annotated collection 
 of poems. It is a book on an entirely different principle — the poems 
 are fully discussed and explained and their historical and literary Inter- 
 pretation given. The sub-title says that it is Intended as a "help to 
 reading with the understanding," and the purpose is admirably carried 
 out. — The Westland Educator. 
 
 Every teacher knows that the poetry selections are the most diffi- 
 cult to teach, to get the pupils interested in understandingly. "Famous 
 Poems Explained" will be heartily welcomed, and it is sure to have a 
 very large sale. — Dubuque Telegraph-Herald. 
 
 I hardly know whether to admire more the admirable selection of 
 material or the introductory matter which gives the student just the 
 point of view and the neces'sary Information to approach the selection 
 Intelligently. — Earl Barnes. 
 
 The teaching of reading, with the help, of this book, should be a 
 genuine pleasure". High school teachers as well as teachers In the 
 grades and country schools will find it of practical value to them and 
 their pupils. — The Progressive Teacher, Nashville. 
 
 This Is the hook I have been looking for for a long time. I 
 am using it in my classes with the greatest satisfaction. — Sdsan F. 
 CHA.SB, State Normal School, Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGB 
 
 31, 33, 35 West 15th Street New York City
 
 GOING TO COLLEGE 
 
 By WAITMAN BARBE, A. M., LiTT. D. 
 
 Professor of En^lisb in West Virgiaia University. 
 Cloth, 104 pages SO cents postpaid 
 
 A discussion of the value of higher education, including letters 
 from Presidents Eliot, Hadley, Wilson, Harper, Low, Jordan, Dwight, 
 Patton, Schurman, Gilman, Angell, Adams, Thwing, Draper, Rogers, 
 Conaty, Macljean, Seelye, Barrows, Purinton and others ; Commissioner 
 Harris, Andrew D. White, E. A. Winship, E. Benjamin Andrews, 
 Emerson B. White, Francis W. Parl<er, Richard G. Boone, B. A. Hins- 
 dale, Nicholas Murray Butler, and other Eminent Educators. 
 
 SOME CRITICAL OPINIONS. 
 
 It Is one of the books which should be so scattered among the 
 common foils that its contents will become common property. — David 
 Stark Jordan, President Leland Stanford University. 
 
 It is a most interesting and fascinating statement, and I am sure 
 that no boy or girl can read It without being moved to lead the best 
 life. — Charles F. Thwing, President Western Reserve University. 
 
 I find It interesting and convincing. — Chas. W. Eliot, President 
 Harvard University. 
 
 Allow me to express the pleasure which I have felt In reading 
 "Going to College." It seems to me that you have stated the case ex- 
 tremely well from all sides. — Arthur T. Hadley, President Yale 
 University. 
 
 We are all indebted to you for having prepared it. — James B. 
 Angell, President University of Michigan. 
 
 A little book, "Goin^ to College," by Waitman Barbe, has recently 
 come under my observation, and I wish it could fall into the hands 
 of every young man and young woman who has or can make oppor- 
 tunity to take a course at college, and who is debating the question. — 
 Correspondent in Atlanta Constitution. 
 
 It is very fine. I wish we had several thousand copies to scatter 
 all over Texas. — J. C. Lattimore, President Baylor University. 
 
 Mr. Barbe's book Is written in a clear and fascinating style, while 
 the enthusiasm of a high ideal pervades it all. We wish It could be in 
 the library of every high school, academy, and seminary, in the land ; 
 better yet, every principal and teacher may safely recommend it to 
 their students as early as these important views of life can be seriously 
 considered. — The Evangelist, New York. 
 
 HINDS, NOBLE & BLDRBDGB 
 
 31, 33, 35 West 15th Street New York City
 
 In this abridged Loma Doone an ideal edition of 
 an ideal story conies into the hands of teachers and 
 scholars. "77;^ bookis toolorts'\'s,-:iys<mQoiovtX bezt 
 known American literary men, and certainly its six 
 or seven hundred pages as found in the other text 
 editions have either kept it out of the class-room or 
 restricted its use. Yet it is an admirable book for 
 the school, if in an abbreviated form. That the 
 abridgement and the annotations were done by//. C. 
 Davis is a sufficient earnest of quality. 
 
 The story is a rich mine of historic allusion. It is 
 put together with great literary skill. It has admir- 
 able points for the teacher's investigation. And it 
 will hold the pupils' interest — for the unique charac- 
 ters who stand out very real in its pages, for the 
 quaintness of its diction, for the richness of its humor, 
 and for its wonderful descriptions of all things in 
 nature. 
 
 Our edition— text, notes, prefaces and glossary- 
 is not 300 pages in length, yet the siory is here with 
 no essential omitted. The historical setting is com- 
 plete, and descriptions of spring and summer, autumn 
 and winter, bud and flower, harvest and revel, sufTcr 
 not at all from omitted detail. The details of the 
 Doones' forays and deviltries, the unsuccessful at- 
 tacks upon their stronghold, the repetitionsofLorna's 
 ancestry, the longstory of Uncle ReubenHuckaback's 
 mine, and the non-essential interview with Mother 
 Meldrum, and whatever else halts the Story, have 
 been shortened or entirely omitted. 
 
 In the Life of the A uihor we tell much that docs not 
 appear in other editions. His school ambitions, his 
 school companions, his college career, his youthful 
 appearance and his recreations, are all recounted. 
 His literary life, with its early disappointments and 
 its later fame ; how he never traveled out of England, 
 yet by extensive reading and prolonged preparation 
 wrote most accurately of the other countries in wh ich 
 he laid the scenes of his novels; how he loved to write 
 with purple ink; the books he wrote besides Loma 
 Z3oon# and what they are about are described in the 
 Introduction,
 
 And then we have a full description of his best- 
 known novel Lorna Doorie. Rejected by 18 publishers, 
 but finally published, then neglected until a happy 
 chance brouglit it to fame. In the Introduction also 
 appears something of the legendary Doones, of the 
 kind of country Exmoor once was, what it looks like 
 now and why it was so good a field for romance. 
 For the teacher the whole field of historic romance 
 is opened by suggestion and the opinion of others is 
 quoted as to the literary value of this novel and the 
 place its author has earned ia English literature. 
 
 The ilhistrations are more abundant than in any- 
 other school edition. "Lorna" herself appears in a 
 copy from the well-known beautiful portrait to be 
 found in almost every household. Other illustrations 
 show the famous "water slide", the old Blundell 
 School, the picture of the Doone Valley as it looks 
 to-day, and in the portrait given we can look into the 
 very face of the novelist himself with its strong fea- 
 tures and good-natured expression. The viap found 
 In this edition does not merely give the immediate 
 locality but also the general view of the west of 
 England, which enables us to trace the location of 
 the places of the story better than in the mere local 
 map generally given. 
 
 The completeness of the Notes and their conven- 
 ience by being placed at the bottom of the pages 
 ■where they belong should appeal to the teacher and 
 student at once. The arrangement of the Glossary 
 and its accompanying Notes for ready reference, with 
 the other features of the book which have been 
 pointed out will, we confidently believe, make this 
 the most practical School edition yet published. 
 
 LORNA DOONE,- ABRIDGED, 
 
 WITH 
 
 60 CVn/i\' NOTES AND GLOSSARY, 
 
 Postpaid 
 
 MAP, ILLUSTRATIONS AND 
 
 DATA 
 
 Hinds, Noble & Eldredge 
 
 3 J - 33 - 35 Vest J5th Street, New York Qty
 
 The Changing Values 
 of English Speech 
 
 Another book in the inimitable style of 
 the author of The Worth of Words. In 
 its nineteen chapters — see list of chaptera 
 on other side — this new book presents the 
 many aspects of value-change as exhibited 
 in English speech, all set forth with that 
 engaging facility of expression of which the 
 author is one or those born masters who, 
 by dint of good, patient hard work done in 
 a cheerful mood and toned by the poetic 
 spirit, can impart humor to simplified spell- 
 ing and even into derivations can put a 
 bead or sparkle, and can add another charm 
 even to lucidity, and make even a dull topic 
 glow with interest. For one instance among 
 the many instances, ia the chapter on 
 Langtiage-Change, one finds this: 
 
 "Languape-chanfre is not always lanpuage-growth 
 — ^but is often mistaken for growtti. Language will 
 change as human interests change. No one should 
 wish to restrict its elasticity or retard its normal 
 growth ; but we should see to it, that it does not 
 over-run the fair garden of the soul in wild, un- 
 cultivated prof usion .... Our language is virtual- 
 ly a thing of life. Each one of us owes it a precise 
 duty. No one has a rii^ht to sin at^ainst his mother 
 tongue, and no one should be excused for so doing. 
 Our words of daily use deserve and demand tha 
 same hygienic cleanliness that our persons deserve 
 and demand. Beauty demands that they shall not 
 be mutilated; utility demands that they shall not be 
 confused; decency demands that they shall not be 
 degraded; justice assures them consideration. It is 
 aslmportant to conserve the integrity and morality 
 of words, as of peoples ; indeed, the morality in one 
 case may largely depend upon that of the other. 
 Clean speech is as wholesome as fine linen. Careful 
 speech is a form of real etiquette. Beautiful words 
 are better than royal purples . . . , "
 
 THE CONTENTS 
 
 The White Island (Britain) 
 
 The Aborigines 
 
 English 
 
 Early English 
 
 Changing Values 
 
 Language-Change 
 
 The Soul of Words 
 
 Poetry and lis "Thread- 
 bare" Themes 
 
 Syntax and a xnord with 
 Professor Lounsbury 
 
 Intensives 
 
 Variations in Word-meanings 
 
 Style 
 
 Distinctions in Word-mean- 
 ings 
 Some Further Distinctions 
 The Origin of Language 
 Some Old Celtic Friends 
 English Orthography 
 Words Which Have Chang, 
 ed Since Shakspere Wrote 
 The Tragedie of Macbeth 
 Common-place Poetry 
 
 The same author's Other book, The Worth 
 of IVords^ has treated its subject in a new 
 and simple manner, and after his own 
 peculiar style, which is never dry. It 
 is touched with glowing humor, deft strokes 
 of irony, and bright flashes of wit. It is 
 for the student, the teacher, the doctor, the 
 lawyer, the editor, the preacher, the man of 
 affairs — in short, for every person who 
 would speak and write and think ia good 
 English. 
 
 THE CHANGING VALUES OF ENGLISH SPEECH 
 
 CLOTH — $1.25 postpaid— GILT TOP 
 
 THE WORTH OF WORDS 
 
 CiaiYi— %l. 25 postpaid— GWJY TOP 
 
 Hinds, Noble & Eldredge 
 
 3 J -33-35 West J5th Street, New York City
 
 Choose Your Words 
 
 BY 
 
 ESSIE BOCK 
 
 Choose your words, is tlie advice 1 offer not alone to 
 several thousand tyros, but to every writer big and 
 little who does not possess THE worth of words. 
 
 We are indebted to Ralcy Husted Bell for many 
 beautiful poems; but nothing that he has ever written 
 is of more value than THE WORTH OF words. This 
 book should be the means of correcting much slip-shod 
 English, not only among students of writing, but among 
 persons of every class; for it is not WTitten in a lack- 
 lustre style which appeals to one merely from a sense 
 of duty. It is a book of knowledge which entertains. 
 The chapter on Slang is as good as a page from life. 
 
 Now let me explain my presumption in offering this 
 advice to the literati. Being still only at the foot of the 
 writers* ladder, unsupported advice from me would 
 have little weight and no authority. Therefore I offer 
 a few citations which I think will prove that I am not 
 far wrong in saying that no one who writes should be 
 without a copy of this book. 
 
 In the cosmopolitan for August one of our foremost 
 authors "walked past" painted store-fronts. Don't hug 
 your dictionary; for your dictionary tells you much 
 that has no place in good English. Many of us speak 
 American, but when we write, we must use English. 
 
 This same writer used the expression healthy camp 
 for healthful camp. It is obvious that he should have 
 said, walked by instead of tvalked past those store-fronts. 
 
 In the August tiumber of good housekeeping a well 
 known writer says " have got" Now, if you got some- 
 thing yesterday you may still have it to-day. You might 
 as well say that you had got it yesterday as you have got 
 it to-day. Have, alone, denotes possession ; and if you 
 have a thing you got it somehow, didn't you? 
 
 To return to the magazine writers. In the cosmo- 
 politan I read: "She experienced her first loneliness." 
 Experience used as a verb is poor taste. I will not go 
 into details — THE worth of words does that But 
 how much better it would have been to say: "She 
 suffered her first loneliness," or, "passed through her
 
 first loneliness." Experience here should palpably be 
 displaced by suffer. There was a time when I might 
 have said replaced in a similar instance. But replace 
 means to put back, while it is only required to force 
 experience out by substituting a clearer term. 
 
 One of our authors praised as a "bom master of 
 English" uses "hoses" as the plural of hose. And he 
 got it printed! Where was the proof-reader? So, wage 
 is often used, although wages is singular. 
 
 Another of our well known authors, who seems proud 
 of his simplicity of expression, in a recent book of Es- 
 says uses "gubernatorial" and "humanitarian" and 
 "presidential" and other words of the same class. 
 Gubernatorial and presidential are incorrectly formed. 
 See THE WORTH OF WORDS. As to humanitarian, no 
 other word is more shamefully misused tlian this. A 
 humane person is not necessarily a humanitarian. For, 
 as Dr. Bell taught me, a humanitarian means "one who 
 denies the godhead of Jesus Christ, and insists upon his 
 human nature." I can see no reason why there should 
 not be humane Christians, and I have no doubt that 
 there are cruel humanitarians. We should have some 
 linguistic means of separating the sheep from the goats. 
 
 Ralcy Husted Bell says that pedants and "small 
 potatoes" are prone to use this class of words. For 
 one, I agree with him; and, for one, I protest against 
 ambiguity in the use of words just as I should protest 
 against personal slovenliness. We need clear and clean 
 speech as well as good clothes and sweet hnen. 
 
 There are any number of words in daily misuse by 
 newspaper writers and book authors, such as telegram, 
 mutual, unique, affable, allude etc., etc. And many other 
 words, which are not words, are habitually placed in 
 good society where they do not belong. 
 
 The worth of words, is a short-cut to good English. 
 The price of the volume will not stand in the way of 
 anyone who needs it. On one's desk it serves as an 
 excellent disinfectant of diseased English. It is also a 
 stimulant to taste in the choice of good words. I am 
 grateful to Dr. Bell for THE WORTH OF words and his 
 other two books (listed below). 
 
 HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE ■ . Publishers of 
 
 The Worth of Words, $1.25 postpaid. 
 
 The Changing Values of English Speech, $1.25. 
 
 The Religion of Beauty, $1.25 postpaid. 
 
 31.33-35 West 15th Street New York City
 
 Mastering a Classic 
 
 Having read a book, are you prepared to declare 
 that you have made it really your own? Can you 
 discuss it or write about it in a thoroughly intelli- 
 gent and comprehensive way, as if you had really 
 sized it up completely ? 
 
 There are many text-books on literature. But so 
 far no work has appeared which provides sytematic 
 instruction in the study of literature itself, applicable 
 to every classic, let us say, or to any classic. 
 
 Such a book we published last year. It is entitled 
 How to Study Literature, It is a guide to the study of 
 literary productions. Taking up Narrative Poetry 
 first, an outline is given, in the form of questions, 
 which will lead the student to comprehend the sub- 
 ject matter, to analyze the structure, to study the 
 characters, the descriptions, the style and the metre — 
 of such a work for example as Tennyson's "Princess" 
 or Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner." Next follows 
 Lyric Poetry, udth questions for the study of the thought, 
 the mood, the style, the metre ; and suggestions 
 for comparative study and collateral reading. In a 
 similar way the drama, the essay, the oration and the 
 novel are taken up, and questions given which will lead 
 to a full comprehension of the work studied. 
 
 The author is a successful teacher in one of the 
 great normal schools. The book grew up in the class 
 loom, and so is practical in every detail, not only 
 adapted for class use in schools, but also the very thing 
 for literary societies, reading circles, and fireside Study. 
 
 The list of terms it contains to designate any 
 literary quality or characteristic one may wish to 
 describe, is alone worth having. 
 
 TeacJiers luho have tested this book as a class-hook, in con* 
 ■nection with our new device for recording one' s reading 
 (books I HAVE READ, 2$ Cents postpaid) assure us that 
 their pupils benefit to the extent of eight to twelve added 
 foints in examinations. 
 
 How To Study Literature 
 
 Price 7J ccfits, postpaid 
 
 HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE, Publishers 
 3J-33-35 West I5th Street New York City
 
 text Books on EnglisD 
 
 Price 
 Heydrick's One Year Course in English and 
 
 American Literature . . . fl.OO 
 
 Heydrick's How to Study Literature . .75 
 
 Sheran's Handbook of Literary Criticism . 1.35 
 
 Smyth's American Literature . . 90 
 
 Trimble's Hand Book of Eng. and Amer. Liter. liso 
 
 Trimble's Short Course in Literature . 1.00 
 
 Southwick's Short Studies in Literature . .6(J 
 
 Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol . ■> .60 
 
 Bell'sThe Worth of Words . . 1.25 
 
 Bell's The Chanffing Values of English Speech 1.25 
 
 Esenwein's Writing the Short Story . 1.25 
 
 A Brief Outline of the Books I Have Read (^Hix) .25 
 
 Fifty English Classics Briefly Outlined Hix] 1.25 
 
 Complete Outline of "Merchant of Venice" .80 
 
 Lorna Doone f cr Schools (Annotated by Davis) .60 
 
 Famous Poems E.xplained ^Barbf) . . l.OO 
 
 Popular Patriotic Poems Explained (Murphy) ,65 
 
 Hart's Language Lessons for Beginners . .20 
 
 Hart's Elementary Grammar . , .VS 
 
 Hart's English Grammar and Analysis . .65 
 
 Hart's First Lessons in Composition . -65 
 
 Gideon's Lessons in Language . . .38 
 
 Gideon's Exercises in English . . .46 
 
 Rigdon's English Grammar for Beginners .40 
 
 Rigdon'3 English Gram, for Common Schools .60 
 
 Rigdon s Grammar of the English Sentence .85 
 
 Rigdon's Outlines, Infinitives, Participles .25 
 
 Maris' Normal English Grammar . . .50 
 
 Buck's Course in Eng. Gram. & Anal., Book I .40 
 
 Buck's Coursein Eng. Gram. & Anal., Book II .60 
 
 The Model Etymology (;r.r*5} . . .53 
 
 A Manual of Etymology (/PVW) . . .75 
 
 The Model Definer(«^^W) . . .88 
 
 Radford's Composition and Rhetoric . 1.00 
 
 Hart's Composition and Rhetoric (New Edit.) 1.00 
 
 Hart's Essentials of Prose Composition . .65 
 
 Hart's Hand Book of English Composition j 1.00 
 
 Heydrick's Short Studies in Composition .60 
 
 Composition Writing Made Easy {Ballard) .75 
 
 LOOO Composition Subjects Classified (Kirkland) .35 
 
 Common Errors in Writing and Speaking (Ellis) .50 
 
 Bad English Corrected (Hathaway) . .80 
 
 How to Punctuate Correctly . , .25 
 
 Punctuation Mastered in 12 Lessons . .35 
 
 Punctuation and the Use of Capital Letters .50 
 
 A Text Book on Letter Writing . . .75 
 
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 Best American Orations of To-Day (Biackstont) 1.25 
 
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 Commencement Parts. (Orations, Essays; Class Day and 
 
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 Famous Poems Explained (Barbe) 1.00 
 
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 Handy Pieces to bpeak {on separate' cards). Pry., Intermed., 
 
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 New Dialogues and Plays for Ages 15 to 25, (paper) 50 
 
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 Pieces for Every Occasion {Le Row) 1.25 
 
 Pieces That Have Taken Prizes in Speaking Contests (Craig) 1.25 
 New Pieces That Will Take Prizes " " {Blackstone) 1.25 
 Selected Readings from the Most Popular Novels {Lewis).. 1.25 
 Southern Speaker, The {Ross) 1.00 
 
 Entertainments for Every Occasion 1.25 
 
 Pros and Cons : Complete Debates, (Craig) 1.50 
 
 Intercollegiate Debates: Briefs and Reports {Pearson) 1.50 
 
 260 New Questions for Debates (paper) 16 
 
 How to Organize and Conduct a Meeting {Henry) 75 
 
 Handbook of Parl'y Usage: Instantaneous Arbitrator (Howe) .60 
 New Parliamentary Manual {Palmer) 75 
 
 Well Planned Course in Reading, A {Le Row)* 1.00 
 
 Ten Weeks' Course in Elocution, A (Coombs)* 1.25 
 
 Essential Steps in Reading and Speaking (Fox) 1.50 
 
 Manual of Elocution and Reading (Brooks)* 1.10 
 
 New Science and Art of Elocution {Fenno)* 1.25 
 
 The Power of Speech (Laicrence)* 1.25 
 
 How to Use the Voice in Reading and Speaking (Ott)* 1.25 
 
 How »o Gesture. Illustrated. (Ott)* 100 
 
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 Psychology of Public Speaking {Scott)* 1-25 
 
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 With Our Compliments 
 
 Complete General Index 
 "THE SPEAKER" 
 
 Frotn now on no librarian and no teacher need balk at 
 the requests of students for guidance to approved selections. 
 
 "The Speaker" is a series of 32 books or "Numbers" 
 of about 125 pages each, containing the best literature 
 for recitations. It has raised the standard of recitation 
 and declamation; and in recognition of this fact "The 
 Speaker" has been admitted to the official librarian 
 lists of many of the States. 
 
 Each of the 32 Numbers is bound separately and 
 contains a careful index of its own contents. Also, 
 Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 are bound together in one stout 
 tome ; likewise Numbers 5, 6, 7, 8 ; likewise the suc- 
 ceeding groups of four, forming 8 generous tomes, and 
 each of these has its own index by authors and titles. 
 ^ But not content with these self-indexes, and com- 
 plying with the request of many librarians and teachers, 
 we have now published in one unit a COMPLETE IN- 
 DEX to all the selections in all of the 32 Numbers. This 
 COMPLETE INDEX is a separate book, and will make 
 all of them even more serviceable than they have been. 
 ^ This COMPLETE INDEX is by authors (664 authors) 
 and by titles (1690 titles), indicating for each the page 
 of that Number of "The Speaker" where to be found. 
 
 For the present "The Speaker" will be discontinued 
 
 as a periodical, and no new Numbers published. 
 
 The large VOL. VIII contains the GENERAL INDEX 
 
 as well as its self-index; and VOLS. I to VII, in turn 
 
 when next printed, will also be fitted out with the 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. The price will not be advanced. 
 
 Prices — "The Speaker" 
 
 NUMBERS 1 to 32 each-paper 40 cts. ; cloth 60 cts. 
 
 The32 Tables of Contents of the 32 Numbers, on reqttest, free 
 
 VOLUME I (Nos. 1. 2. 3. i^ bound together) c/o/A $1.50 
 
 II (Nos. 5, 6, 7, ^ bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 III (Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12 bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 IV (Nos. 13. 14. 15. 16 bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 V (Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20 bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 VI (Nos. 21, 22, 23. 24 bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 VII (Nos. 25, 26, 27, 28 bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 VIII (Nos. 29, 30, 31, 32 bound together) cloth 1.50 
 
 COMPLETE INDEX to all Numbers, ONE COPY GRATIS 
 to Librarians and Teachers 
 
 HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE, Publishers 
 31, 33, 35 West 15th Street New York City
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
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 AA 001363 723 6