Marmion

     ‘Cast up thy eyes, how bleak and bare 
      He wanders on the tops of Yare!’

line 37. imps (Gr. emphutos, Swed. ympa). See ‘Faery Queene,’ Book I. (Clarendon Press), note to Introd. The word means (1) a graft; (2) a scion of a noble house; (3) a little demon; (4) a mischievous child. The context implies that the last is the sense in which the word is used here. Cp. Beattie’s ‘Minstrel,’ i. 17:-

     ‘Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray 
      Of squabbling imps,’

line 50. round. Strictly speaking, a round is a circular dance in which the performers hold each other by the hands. The term, however, is fairly applicable to the frolicsome gambols of a group of lambs in a spring meadow. Certain rounds became famous enough to be individualised, as e.g. Sellenger’s or St. Leger’s round, mentioned in the May-day song, ‘Come Lasses and Lads.’ Cp. Macbeth, iv. 1; Midsummer Night’s Dream, ii. 2; and see note on Comus, line 144, in ‘English Poems of Milton,’ vol. i. (Clarendon Press).

line 53. Lockhart, in a foot-note to his edition of ‘Marmion,’ quotes from the ‘Monthly Review’ of May, 1808: ‘The “chance and change” of nature-the vicissitudes which are observable in the moral as well as the physical part of the creation-have given occasion to more exquisite poetry than any other general subject.... The Ai, ai, tai Malaki of Moschus is worked up again to some advantage in the following passage- “To mute,” &c.’

lines 61, 62. The inversion of reference in these lines is an illustration of the rhetorical figure ‘chiasmus.’ Cp. the arrangement of the demonstrative pronouns in these sentences from ‘Kenilworth’:-‘Your eyes contradict your tongue. That speaks of a protector, willing and able to watch over you; but these tell me you are ruined.’

line 64. Cp. closing lines of Wordsworth’s ‘Ode on Intimations of Immortality’ (finished in 1806):-

     ‘To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
      Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’

lines 65-8. Nelson fell at Trafalgar, Oct. 21, 1805; Pitt died Jan. 23, 1806.

line 72. Gadite wave. The epithet is derived from Gades, the Roman name of the modern Cadiz.

line 73. Levin = lightning. See Canto I, line 400. Spenser uses the phrase ‘piercing levin’ in the July eclogue of the ‘Shepheards Calendar,’ and in ‘Faery Queene,’ III. v. 48. The word still occasionally occurs in poetry. Cp. Longfellow, ‘Golden Legend,’ v., near end:-

     ‘See! from its summit the lurid levin 
      Flashes downward without warning! ‘

line 76. fated = charged with determination of fate. Cp. All’s Well that Ends Well, i. I. 221-

                ‘The fated sky 
      Gives us free scope.’

line 82. Hafnia, is Copenhagen. The three victories are, the battle of the Nile, 1798; the battle of the Baltic, 1801; and Trafalgar, 1805.

lines 84-86. Pitt (1759-1806) became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1783, and from 1785 onwards the facts of his career are a constituent part of national history. He faced with success difficulties like bread riots, mutinies in the fleet in 1797, disturbances by the ‘United Irishmen,’ and the alarming threats of Napoleon. In 1800 the Union of Ireland with Great Britain gave Irishmen new motives for living, and in 1803 national patriotism, stirred and guided by Pitt, was manifested in the enrolment of over three hundred thousand volunteers prepared to withstand the vaunted ‘Army of England.’ In spite of his distinguished position and eminent services, Pitt died L40,000 in debt, and his responsibilities were promptly met by a vote of the House of Commons.