Alonzo and Melissa Part 16

the "stilly sound" of the low murmuring brook Misprinted in 1851 as "slitty sound". Probably John Home, _Douglas_ (1756) IV:i.

"the confused noise of the warriors, and garments rolled in blood,"

1804 text has "warrior". Isaiah 9:5 (King James): For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood.

until "the heavens were arrayed in blackness."

Isaiah 50:3: "I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering."

he cast a "longing, lingering look"

Thomas Gray (1716-71) _Elegy_.

"Blue trembling billows, topp'd with foam,"

The 1804 and 1811 texts have the correct form "tumbling billows".

_Anarchiad, a New England Poem_ (1786-87) with joint authors Joel Barlow (1754-1812), David Humphreys (1752-1818), John Trumbull (1750-1831) and Lemuel Hopkins (1750-1801).

"dingy scud"

Printed "dirgy scud" in all but the 1804 original. Possibly from Charles Dibdin (b. 1745), "Ev'ry Inch a Sailor": The wind blew hard, the sea ran high, The dingy scud drove 'cross the sky ...

"... like Patience on a monument ..."

_Twelfth Night_ II:iv.

The "days of other years"

Possibly from "Ossian" (James MacPherson); the phrase is used often.

Here may the "widowed wild rose love to bloom!"

May be a paraphrase of another line in _The Conquest of Canaan_.

"Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy ...."

Identified in the text as Edward Young, _Night Thoughts_, 1745. The couplet on the t.i.tle page is from the same source.

"To tie those bands which nought but death can sever."

May be "bonds" as in 1804 text. The phrase "that naught but death can sever" occurs in Spenser, _Amoretti_ VI (1595).

"white as the southern clouds"

The phrase occurs in a translation of Salomon Gessner, as well as in an 1817 text (Pennie, "The Royal Minstrel"). Both pa.s.sages are descriptions of sheep.

"a good old age"

The phrase occurs at least four times in the King James Bible.