Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes,
From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild,
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far;
Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads,
Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd
Between two meeting hills, it bursts away,
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream;
There, gathering triple force, rapid and deep,

It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

When from the pallid sky the Sun descends,
With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain wanders, stain'd; red fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey: while rising slow,
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the Moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray;

Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.

Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide

And blind commotion, heaves; while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,

And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air,
Down, in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends th' ethereal force, and with strong gust
Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep.
Through the black night that sits immense around,
Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn.
Meantime the mountain-billows to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchor'd navies from their stations drive,
Wild as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters: now th' inflated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintery Baltic thundering o'er their head
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted Heaven they wing their course,
And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock,
Or shoal insidious break not their career,

FROM THE BARD'S SONG IN THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

315

And in loose fragments fling them floating round.

Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds
What of its tarnish'd honours yet remain;
Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing wind's
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.

Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof,
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.
Then too, they say, through all the burden'd air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant sighs,
That, utter'd by the demon of the night,

Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.

Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds, commix'd
With stars swift gliding, sweep along the sky.

All Nature reels: till Nature's King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ;

Then strait, air, sea, and earth, are hush'd at once.

FROM THE BARD'S SONG IN THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

"It was not by vile loitering in ease

That Greece obtain'd the brighter palm of art,
That soft yet ardent Athens learnt to please,
To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart,

In all supreme! complete in every part !
It was not thence majestic Rome arose,

And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart:
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose.

"Had unambitious mortals minded nought,
But in loose joy their time to wear away;
Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought,
Pleas'd on her pillow their dull heads to lay,
Rude Nature's state had been our state to-day;
No cities e'er their towery fronts had rais'd,
No arts had made us opulent and gay;

With brother-brutes the human race had graz'd;
None c'er had soar'd to fame, none honour'd been, none prais'd.

"Great Homer's song had never fir'd the breast To thirst of glory, and heroic deeds ;

Sweet Maro's' Muse, sunk in inglorious rest,
Had silent slept amid the Mincian reeds :
The wits of modern time had told their beads,
And monkish legends been their only strains;

Our Milton's Eden had lain wrapt in weeds,

Our Shakspeare stroll'd and laugh'd with Warwick swains, Ne had my master Spenser charm'd his Mulla's2 plains.

"Dumb too had been the sage historic Muse,
And perish'd all the sons of ancient fame;
Those starry lights of virtue, that diffuse
Through the dark depth of time their vivid flame,
Had all been lost with such as have no name.
Who then had scorn'd his ease for others' good?
Who then had toil'd rapacious men to tame?
Who in the public breach devoted stood,

And for his country's cause been prodigal of blood?

"But should your hearts to fame unfeeling be,
If right I read, you pleasure all require:
Then hear how best may be obtain'd this fee,
How best enjoy'd this nature's wide desire.
Toil, and be glad! let Industry inspire
Into your quicken'd limbs her buoyant breath!
Who does not act is dead; absorpt entire
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath :
O leaden-hearted men, to be in love with death!

"Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,
When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given!
Health is the vital principle of bliss,
And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch, who slugs his life away,

Soon swallow'd in disease's sad abyss;

While he whom toil has brac'd, or manly play,

Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.

"O, who can speak the vigorous joy of health? Unclogg'd the body, unobscur'd the mind: The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth, The temperate evening falls serene and kind. In health the wiser brutes true gladness find. See how the younglings frisk along the meads, As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind; Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds: Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasaunce breeds?"

1 Virgil, born on the banks of the Mincius, in the north of Italy. See Spencer's Life, p. 54, supra.

THOMAS GRAY.

(1716-1771.)

THOMAS GRAY was the son of a London scrivener. The brutality of his father's character caused his separation from his wife, and the poet owed his education, and perhaps his life, to the affection of his mother, who lived to witness the eminence of her son.

Gray's life was spent chiefly at the University of Cambridge, amidst his favourite studies. The only breaks in his studious existence, were his continental tour with his friend Horace Walpole, the celebrated son of the great minister, and his restless journeys in search of health in Scotland and England. The error of Gray's life was a thirst for accumulation of knowledge without the activity to body it forth in living composition. Severe as a student, he was indolent as an author; with the reputation of the most learned man in Europe, and in the midst of the projection of great designs, he allowed his acquisitions to perish with himself; his charming letters, and his splendid but scanty poetry, leave the world to regret his want of egressive industry :

if our virtues

Do not go forth of us; 'tis all alike
As if we had them not.

The rage of accumulation was also one of the banes of Coleridge. Gray's inactivity could not even rouse itself to the preparation of the lectures necessary for his Cambridge professorship of history. He was a man of ardent affections, of sincere piety, and practical benevolence; but his sequestered student life, and an affectation of the character of a gentleman who studied from choice, gave a tinge of effeminate finicalness and pedantry to his manners, that incurred the ridicule of the wilder spirits of Cambridge. He died of gout in the stomach in 1771.

Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard was, and is, the most popular of his efforts. Its sentiments and scenery, however artificially wrought, will in all time come home to every bosom. His greatest Odes are "The Progress of Poesy," and "The Bard ;" and, despite the captious criticism of Johnson, posterity has shamed the injustice of Gray's contemporaries in its high estimation of these compositions. The classical grace of Gray renders him a poet peculiarly valuable to the youthful student of English.

66 THE PROGRESS OF POESY."

A PINDARIC ODE.

I.

Awake, Æolian1 lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs"

A thousand rills their mazy progress take;

See note 2, p. 219. Eolian is applied to his poetry by Pindar himself.

2 Aganippe and Hippocrene were springs of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses.-See note 9, p. 206.

The laughing flowers that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign :1
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:

The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the roar.

Oh! sovereign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen cares,

And frantic passions, hear thy soft control :3
On Thracia's hills the lord of war

Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command:
Perching on the scepter'd hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terrour of his beak, and lightning of his eye.*

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Temper'd to thy warbled lay,

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen,

On Cytherea's day,"

With antic Sports and blue-ey'd Pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet:

To brisk notes in cadence beating,

Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow-melting strains their queen's approach declare:

1 Periphrasis for "fields;" Ceres, the deity of agriculture.

2 Johnson harshly censures this stanza as containing an absurd mixture of metaphor. Gray's apology is found in his own note; "The subject and the simile are, as usual with Pindar, united."

3 Comp. Hor. Odes i. 32; 1. 14; iv. 3, 1. 17, &c.

The name of Mars (Ares) is often connected with Thrace; see p. 8, supra; "the worship of Ares is understood to have been propagated southward from Scythia through Thrace, and most of the early myths respecting him are localized north of Hellas." See Odyss. viii. 360, &c.; Ovid, Ars Am. i 588. Feathered king, the eagle of Jove. For the images of this part of the succeeding stanza, see Pindar's First Pythian, v. 1—24. Akenside also imitates this passage in the Hymn to the Naiads;" v. 265–277.

5 Idalia or -ium, the favourite retreat of Venus (Aphrodite) in Cyprus; now Dalin. Johnson finds fault with velvet. Cytherea's day, the Aphrodisia, or festival of Venus, celebrated with great pomp and luxury in the cities of Greece and Cyprus. Cytherea, see note 2, p. 149, supra.

6 Johnson finds fault with Gray's "words arbitrarily compounded:" in particular, he censures many-twinkling," on the ground that, though we may say "many-spotted," we cannot say many-spotting." But it is plain, that "spot" is a transitive verb, and "twinkle" is intransitive, and consequently twinkling" is under the same laws of composition as the passive participle "spotted."