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— William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or Love in a golden bowl?

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noun

One who, or that which, accelerates.

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ODE ON THE SPRING.

149 lines
Thomas Gray·1716–1771
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he original manuscript title of this ode was "Noontide." It wasfirst printed in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. ii. p. 271, under thetitle of "Ode." 1. _The rosy-bosom'd Hours_. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 984: "The Gracesand the rosy-bosom'd Hours;" and Thomson, _Spring_, 1007: "The rosy-bosom'd SpringTo weeping Fancy pines." The _Horæ_, or hours, according to the Homeric idea, were thegoddesses of the seasons, the course of which was symbolicallyrepresented by "the dance of the Hours." They were often described,in connection with the Graces, Hebe, and Aphrodite, as accompanyingwith their dancing the songs of the Muses and the lyre of Apollo.Long after the time of Homer they continued to be regarded as thegivers of the seasons, especially spring and autumn, or "Nature inher bloom and her maturity." At first there were only two Horæ,Thallo (or Spring) and Karpo (or Autumn); but later the number wasthree, like that of the Graces. In art they are represented asblooming maidens, bearing the products of the seasons. 2. _Fair Venus' train_. The Hours adorned Aphrodite (Venus) as sherose from the sea, and are often associated with her by Homer,Hesiod, and other classical writers. Wakefield remarks: "Venus ishere employed, in conformity to the mythology of the Greeks, as thesource of creation and beauty." 3. _Long-expecting_. Waiting long for the spring. Sometimesincorrectly printed "long-expected." Cf. Dryden, _Astræa Redux_, 132:"To flowers that in its womb expecting lie." 4. _The purple year_. Cf. the _Pervigilium Veneris_, 13: "Ipsa gemmispurpurantem pingit annum floribus;" Pope, _Pastorals_, i. 28: "Andlavish Nature paints the purple year;" and Mallet, _Zephyr_: "Galesthat wake the purple year." 5. _The Attic warbler_. The nightingale, called "the Attic bird,"either because it was so common in Attica, or from the old legendthat Philomela (or, as some say, Procne), the daughter of a king ofAttica, was changed into a nightingale. Cf. Milton's description ofAthens (_P. R._ iv. 245): "where the Attic birdTrills her thick-warbled notes the summer long." Cf. Ovid, _Hal._ 110: "Attica avis verna sub tempestate queratus;"and Propertius, ii. 16, 6: "Attica volucris." _Pours her throat_ is a metonymy. H. p. 85. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_,iii. 33: "Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?" 6, 7. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 577: "From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings,The symphony of spring." 9, 10. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 989: "And west winds with musky wingAbout the cedarn alleys flingNard and cassia's balmy smells." 12. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ iv. 245: "Where the unpierc'd shade Imbrown'dthe noontide bowers;" Pope, _Eloisa_, 170: "And breathes a brownerhorror on the woods;" Thomson, _Castle of Indolence_, i. 38: "OrAutumn's varied shades imbrown the walls." According to Ruskin (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. p. 241, Amer. ed.)there is no brown in nature. After remarking that Dante "does notacknowledge the existence of the colour of _brown_ at all," he goeson to say: "But one day, just when I was puzzling myself about this,I happened to be sitting by one of our best living modern colourists,watching him at his work, when he said, suddenly and by mereaccident, after we had been talking about other things, 'Do you knowI have found that there is no _brown_ in nature? What we call brownis always a variety either of orange or purple. It never can berepresented by umber, unless altered by contrast.' It is curious howfar the significance of this remark extends, how exquisitely itillustrates and confirms the mediæval sense of hue," etc. 14. _O'ercanopies the glade_. Gray himself quotes Shakes. _M. N. D._ii. 1: "A bank o'ercanopied with luscious woodbine."[1] Cf. Fletcher,_Purple Island_, i. 5, 30: "The beech shall yield a cool, safecanopy;" and Milton, _Comus_, 543: "a bank, With ivy canopied." [Footnote 1: The reading of the folio of 1623 is: "I know a banke where the wilde time blowes,Where Oxslips and the nodding Violet growes,Quite ouer-cannoped with luscious woodbine." Dyce and some other modern editors read, "Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine."] 15. _Rushy brink_. Cf. _Comus_, 890: "By the rushy-fringed bank." 19, 20. These lines, as first printed, read: "How low, how indigent the proud!How little are the great!" 22. _The panting herds_. Cf. Pope, _Past._ ii. 87: "To closer shadesthe panting flocks remove." 23. _The peopled air_. Cf. Walton, _C. A._: "Now the wing'd people ofthe sky shall sing;" Beaumont, _Psyche_: "Every tree empeopled waswith birds of softest throats." 24. _The busy murmur_. Cf. Milton, _P. R._ iv. 248: "bees'industrious murmur." 25. _The insect youth_. Perhaps suggested by a line in Green's_Hermitage_, quoted in a letter of Gray to Walpole: "Frommaggot-youth through change of state," etc. See on 31 below. 26. _The honied spring_. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 142: "the bee withhonied thigh;" and _Lyc._ 140: "the honied showers." "There has of late arisen," says Johnson in his Life of Gray, "apractice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives thetermination of participles, such as the _cultured plain_, the_daisied bank_; but I am sorry to see in the lines of a scholar likeGray the _honied_ spring." But, as we have seen, _honied_ is found inMilton; and Shakespeare also uses it in _Hen. V._ i. 1: "honey'dsentences." _Mellitus_ is used by Cicero, Horace, and Catullus. Theeditor of an English dictionary, as Lord Grenville has remarked,ought to know "that the ready conversion of our substances intoverbs, participles, and participial adjectives is of the very essenceof our tongue, derived from its Saxon origin, and a main source ofits energy and richness." 27. _The liquid noon_. Gray quotes Virgil, _Geo._ iv. 59: "Nare peraestatem liquidam." 30. _Quick-glancing to the sun_. Gray quotes Milton, _P. L._ vii.405: "Sporting with quick glance,Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold." 31. Gray here quotes Green, _Grotto_: "While insects from thethreshold preach." In a letter to Walpole, he says: "I send you a bitof a thing for two reasons: first, because it is of one of yourfavourites, Mr. M. Green; and next, because I would do justice. Thethought on which my second Ode turns [this Ode, afterwards placedfirst by Gray] is manifestly stole from hence; not that I knew it atthe time, but having seen this many years before, to be sure itimprinted itself on my memory, and, forgetting the Author, I took itfor my own." Then comes the quotation from Green's _Grotto_. Thepassage referring to the insects is as follows: "To the mind's ear, and inward sight,There silence speaks, and shade gives light:While insects from the threshold preach,And minds dispos'd to musing teach;Proud of strong limbs and painted hues,They perish by the slightest bruise;Or maladies begun withinDestroy more slow life's frail machine:From maggot-youth, thro' change of state,They feel like us the turns of fate:Some born to creep have liv'd to fly,And chang'd earth's cells for dwellings high:And some that did their six wings keep,Before they died, been forc'd to creep.They politics, like ours, profess;The greater prey upon the less.Some strain on foot huge loads to bring,Some toil incessant on the wing:Nor from their vigorous schemes desistTill death; and then they are never mist.Some frolick, toil, marry, increase,Are sick and well, have war and peace;And broke with age in half a day,Yield to successors, and away." 47. _Painted plumage_. Cf. Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 118: "His paintedwings; and Milton, _P. L._ vii. 433: "From branch to branch the smaller birds with songSolaced the woods, and spread their painted wings." See also Virgil, _Geo._ iii. 243, and _Æn._ iv. 525: "pictaequevolucres;" and Phædrus, _Fab._ iii. 18: "pictisque plumis." [Illustration]
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