Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 21

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

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

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

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

"As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart."

--_Julius Caesar_, Act ii, sc. 1.

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

"On the steep Where your old bards, the Druids lie."

=griesly.= Grisly. From the A.-S. _grisli_, dreadful.

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

"Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain,-- Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore, Shoot the trembling cords along; Swords that once a monarch bore, Keep the tissue close and strong."

--_The Fatal Sisters_, translated by Gray, from the Norse.

19. "Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle."--_Gray._ The murder of the king occurred on the night of September 21, 1327.

Berkeley Castle stands at the southeast end of the town of Berkeley, about one and one-half miles from the Severn River. It was built before the time of Henry II., and is still inhabited by a descendant of its founders.

20. =She-wolf of France.= Isabel of France, the wife of Edward II.

Shakespeare applies this epithet to Margaret, the queen of Henry VI.:

"She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France."

--_3 Henry VI._, Act i, sc. 4.

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

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

23. =sable warrior.= "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father."--_Gray._

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

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

26. =din of battle.= "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster."--_Gray._

=bray.= From Gr. _bracho_, to clash.

27. =towers of Julius.= "The oldest part of that structure (the Tower of London) is vulgarly attributed to Julius Caesar."--_Gray._

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

29. =The rose of snow, twined with her blus.h.i.+ng foe.= The reference is to the union of the houses of York and Lancaster after the War of the Roses.

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

"In the sty of the most deadly boar."

--_Richard III._, Act iv, sc. 5.

"The wretched, b.l.o.o.d.y, and usurping boar That spoiled your summer fields and fruitful vines, Swills your warm blood like wash."

--_Ibid._ Act v, sc. 2.

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

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

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

"Her who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in spring."

33. The bard's visions are resumed, and he sees the glories which were ushered in with the advent of the Tudor line. Henry VII.'s paternal grandfather was Sir Owen Tewdwr of Pernnyuydd, in Anglesey, whose mother was of royal British blood. "Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor."--_Gray._

34. =a form divine.= Elizabeth.

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

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

37. See "Faerie Queene," 1:

"Fierce warres and faithful love shall moralize my song."

38. =buskined measures.= The tragic drama as represented by Shakespeare.

So Milton speaks ("Il Penseroso," 102) of the "buskind stage." The buskin was the Greek _cothurnus_, a boot with high heels, designed to add stature and dignity to the tragic actor.

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

40. =he repairs.= So Milton:

"Sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

THOMAS GRAY was born in Cornhill, London, December 26th, 1716. Through the help of his mother's brother, who was a.s.sistant-Master at that famous school, he received his primary education at Eton, and in 1735 entered St. Peter's College, Cambridge. In 1738 he left the University without taking a degree, intending to study law at the Inner Temple.

Soon afterwards, however, he accompanied Horace Walpole on a tour through France and Italy, and spent the greater part of two years in Paris, Rome, and Florence. Upon his return to England, finding himself possessed of a life-long competency, he resolved to give up the law and devote himself entirely to self-culture. He settled at Cambridge, and gave all his time to study and to the cultivation of his mind. The first of his poems to appear in print was the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," published in 1747. His "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was not published until 1750, although it had been written and handed about in ma.n.u.script several years before. The post of Poet-Laureate was offered him in 1757, on the death of Colley Cibber; but he did not accept it. In 1768 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, but the state of his health was such that he was never permitted to lecture. He died, July 29th, 1771, at the age of fifty-four.

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

Matthew Arnold says: "Gray's production was scanty, and scanty it could not but be. Even what he produced was not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone or almost alone in his age. Gray said himself that the style he aimed at was 'extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical.'

Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray may be said to have reached, in his style, the excellence at which he aimed."

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