are those in which the phrasing is most natural and direct. A few points in detail call for passing consideration. In the first stanza, the plural form “ wind" suggests the plurality of the cattle, and avoids an unpleasant juxtaposition of sibilants. In the ninth stanza, it is the "hour" that is the subject of "awaits," not "the boast of heraldry' " and all that accompany it so the verb is singular. The reference to Milton in a later stanza is plain enough; the words about Cromwell show that Gray, like many of his age, did the great general scant justice; the mention of Hampden, however, the man who refused to pay the ship-money tax levied by Charles I, is wholly appreciative. The inverted structure of the following stanza is clear when we pass to the words "Their lot forbade." "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife" modifies wishes," of course, not "stray." It seems best to read the third stanza beyond in the sense of "For who e'er resigned this pleasing, anxious being, to become a prey to dumb forgetfulness?" The following stanza answers the question. The two stanzas beginning, "Hard by yon wood" are inscribed on the memorial to Gray erected near the famous churchyard at Stoke Poges, the scene of the poem. The Elegy is the most famous of English poems written in the so-called "heroic couplet,"-iambic pentameter lines rhyming a b a b. The characteristic stanza is a complete unit in itself, as can be seen, for example, in the one beginning "The boast of heraldry." It is noteworthy, however, that in some cases the sense is carried from one stanza into the next. Oral reading discloses the metrical delicacy of the poem, as well as such occasional instances of sound echoing sense as we find in the last lines of the second stanza. 66 HESTER (Page 208) The Hester" of the poem was a Quaker girl, Hester Savory, who died in her youth, shortly after her marriage. Though she was for a time a neighbor of Lamb's, and he was in the habit of seeing her frequently, he writes that he had never met her. ELEGY ON THYRZA (Page 209) The name Thyrza appears in several of Byron's poems written about the time of this one. From the evidence of the poet's conversations and letters there is reason to believe that this is a fanciful name applied to a real, but unidentified person. EVELYN HOPE (Page 211) We are not to understand this poem as in any sense autobiographic; yet we cannot fail to note in it that strong sense of personal immortality that is characteristic of Browning's utterances on the subject of death. There is a strong tendency to conclude, from the evidence of other poems, that Browning knew the secret only of vigorous, rude, and sometimes careless metrical effects; but a truer view appears when the tender delicacy of such poems as this becomes a part of the general impression. GLEN-ALMAIN, THE NARROW GLEN (Page 214) Composed during a trip to Scotland on which the poet was accompanied by his sister Dorothy and, for a part of the way, by Coleridge. Ossian was a hero of early Scottish poetry, and it was on hearing of the legend that associated him with this glen that Wordsworth wrote the poem. O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! (Page 215) This whole poem is a sustained figure of speech, for it was written after Lincoln's assassination, just as he had brought the Ship of State to port at the close of the Civil War. The note of personal grief is especially significant in view of the fact that Whitman, although an intense admirer of Lincoln, had never met him personally. It is when we read the poem aloud that we realize the effective contrast between the strong movement of the first long lines and the solemn tenderness of the short closing ones. CORONACH (Page 216) The Coronach of the Highlanders is explained in the Cambridge edition of Scott's poems as "a wild expression of lamentation poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed friend. When the words of it were articulate, they expressed the praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his death." THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS (Page 221) One of those poems which, written while Wordsworth was in Germany, show where his thoughts were during the period. ODE WRITTEN IN 1746 The date in the title is of no importance: the poem might be associated with any soldiers' burying-ground. The interesting feature of the poem is its diction, typical of that which was highly in favor in the eighteenth century and has been much admired since. POEMS ON THE WORLD OF NATURE THE DAFFODILS It is pleasant to associate this poem with the following extract from the journal kept by Wordsworth's sister: "When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the water-side. We fancied that the sea had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more, and yet more; and at last under the boughs of the trees we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore.. I never saw daffodils so beautiful . they tossed and reeled and danced as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake." Lines 21 and 22, the two best,” as he said, were suggested to him by his wife, Mary. 66 TO THE DAISY The poem is typical of Wordsworth's poems on natural objects, revealing an imaginative attitude that never loses sight of the simple beauty or worthiness of the object itself. It will be remembered that it is the English daisy, fringed with red underneath, that was familiar to Wordsworth. The succession of similes recalls Shelley's To a Skylark. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS In order to understand this poem it is necessary to know how the nautilus occupies successively larger chambers as its spiral shell grows. The dictionary gives a cross-section cut illustrating the matter. TO A MOUSE The The address to the field mouse, with its accompanying description, whimsically tender though it be, is not complete until the idea is applied to the poet himself. change is not, however, unprepared for: the last part of the second stanza has implied a bond holding mouse and man in mutual sympathy. The unfamiliar words are so many in this poem that it is best to put them down alphabetically. Agley: awry Bickerin': speedy Big: build Brattle: scamper But: without Coulter: plough-share Cranreuch: hoar-frost Daimen: occasional Hald: property Icker: ear of corn Lane: alone Lave: remainder Pattle: stick for breaking clods Thole: suffer Thrave: twenty-four sheaves TO A SKYLARK (Page 235) Mrs. Shelley tells of the circumstances occasioning_this poem: In the spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of some friends, who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a beautiful summer evening while wandering among the lanes, whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fireflies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark, which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems." a Of the stimulating imaginative quality of this poem, its passion and its exquisite music, nothing need be said. But since we are accustomed to think of it as a series of separate stanzas, it will help us to get the full significance of the whole poem if we note how the stanzas are related together. After the invocation and description come series of imaginative comparisons beginning, it is significant, with that of the poet singing to the indifferent world. Then with the thirteenth stanza begins a wistful inquiry as to the secret of the bird's unconquerable joyousness, with a sad reflection as to the pain in man's own life. By the last stanza the two ideas are brought into one-the yearning of the poet toward adequate expression, and the triumphant eloquence of the skylark's song. This disposition of the poet to identify himself with the spirit in nature to which he sings we connect, of course, with the noteworthy example of it in the Ode to the West Wind. TO THE SKYLARK A comparison of the poem with Shelley's more famous one on the same subject brings out the fact that whereas Shelley's passionate spirit identifies itself finally with the "clear keen joyance " of the songster, Wordsworth seizes on another and more impersonal aspect of the skylark's habits. TO THE CUCKOO (Page 240) 'Composed in the orchard at Town-End, Grasmere, 1804."-Wordsworth's note. |