81. Hales quotes Collins, _Ode to Simplicity_:
131 lines✦
While Rome could none esteemBut Virtue's patriot theme,You lov'd her hills, and led her laureate band;But staid to sing aloneTo one distinguish'd throne,And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land." 84. _Nature's darling_. "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. Cleveland, _Poems_: "Here lies within this stony shadeNature's darling; whom she madeHer fairest model, her brief story,In him heaping all her glory." On _green lap_, cf. Milton, _Song on May Morning_: "The flowery May, who from her green lap throwsThe yellow cowslip and the pale primrose." 85. _Lucid Avon_. Cf. Seneca, _Thyest._ 129: "gelido flumine lucidusAlpheos." 86. _The mighty mother_. That is, Nature. Pope, in the _Dunciad_, i.1, uses the same expression in a satirical way: "The Mighty Mother, and her Son, who bringsThe Smithfield Muses to the ear of kings,I sing." See also Dryden, _Georgics_, i. 466: "On the green turf thy careless limbs display,And celebrate the mighty mother's day." 87. _The dauntless child_. Cf. Horace, _Od._ iii. 4, 20: "non sinedis animosus infans." Wakefield quotes Virgil, _Ecl._ iv. 60:"Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem." Mitford points out thatthe identical expression occurs in Sandys's translation of Ovid,_Met._ iv. 515: "the childStretch'd forth its little arms, and on him smil'd." See also Catullus, _In Nupt. Jun. et Manl._ 216: "Torquatus volo parvulusMatris e gremio suaePorrigens teneras manus,Dulce rideat." 91. _These golden keys_. Cf. Young, _Resig._: "Nature, which favours to the fewAll art beyond imparts,To him presented at his birthThe key of human hearts." Wakefield cites _Comus_, 12: "Yet some there be, that with due steps aspireTo lay their hands upon that golden keyThat opes the palace of eternity." See also _Lycidas_, 110: "Two massy keys he bore of metals twain;The golden opes, the iron shuts amain." 93. _Of horror_. A MS. variation is "Of terror." 94. _Or ope the sacred source_. In a letter to Dr. Wharton, Sept. 7,1757, Gray mentions, among other criticisms upon this ode, that "Dr.Akenside criticises opening a _source_ with a _key_." But, as Mitfordremarks, Akenside himself in his _Ode on Lyric Poetry_ has, "While Iso late _unlock_ thy purer _springs_," and in his _Pleasures ofImagination_, "I _unlock_ the _springs_ of ancient wisdom." 95. _Nor second he_, etc. "Milton" (Gray). 96, 97. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ vii. 12: "Up led by thee,Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed,An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air." 98. _The flaming bounds_, etc. Gray quotes Lucretius, i. 74:"Flammantia moenia mundi." Cf. also Horace, _Epist._ i. 14, 9: "amatspatiis obstantia rumpere claustra." 99. Gray quotes _Ezekiel_ i. 20, 26, 28. See also Milton, _At aSolemn Music_, 7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" _IlPens._ 53: "the fiery-wheeled throne;" _P. L._ vi. 758: "Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pureAmber, and colours of the showery arch;" and _id._ vi. 771: "He on the wings of cherub rode sublime,On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned." 101. _Blasted with excess of light_. Cf. _P. L._ iii. 380: "Dark withexcessive bright thy skirts appear." 102. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur luminanoctem," which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last inendless night." Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ viii. 64: [Greek: Ophthalmôn men amerses, didou d' hêdeian aoidên.] 103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyondbounds."[3] [Footnote 3: In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray becameacquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden,adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he hadlearned it wholly from the great poet."] 105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy ofDryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, _Imit. of Hor. Ep._ ii. 1, 267: "Waller was smooth: but Dryden taught to joinThe varying verse, the full-resounding line,The long majestic march, and energy divine." 106. Gray quotes _Job_ xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck withthunder?" 108. _Bright-eyed_. The MS. has "full-plumed." 110. Gray quotes Cowley, _Prophet_: "Words that weep, and tears thatspeak." Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought thatGray had in view the two different effects of words alreadydescribed; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conceptionand imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions." 111. "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kindthan that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had hismerit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. Thatof Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of latedays, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in someof his choruses; above all in the last of _Caractacus_: 'Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread!' etc." (Gray). 113. _Wakes thee now_. Cf. _Elegy_, 48: "Or wak'd to ecstasy theliving lyre." 115. "[Greek: Dios pros ornicha theion]. _Olymp._ ii. 159. Pindarcompares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croakand clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless oftheir noise" (Gray). Cf. Spenser, _F. Q._ v. 4, 42: "Like to an Eagle, in his kingly prideSoring through his wide Empire of the aire,To weather his brode sailes." Cowley, in his translation of Horace, _Od._ iv. 2, calls Pindar "theTheban swan" ("Dircaeum cycnum"): "Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling airThe Theban Swan does upward bear." 117. _Azure deep of air_. Cf. Euripides, _Med._ 1294: [Greek: esaitheros bathos]; and Lucretius, ii. 151: "Aëris in magnum ferturmare." Cowley has "Row through the trackless ocean of air;" andShakes. (_T. of A._ iv. 2), "this sea of air." 118, 119. The MS. reads: "Yet when they first were open'd on the dayBefore his visionary eyes would run." D. Stewart (_Philos. of Human Mind_) remarks that "Gray, indescribing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed withexquisite judgment on that class of our conceptions which are derivedfrom _visible_ objects." 120. _With orient hues_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ i. 546: "with orientcolours waving."
✦