“Extra anni solisque vias.”
—Virgil, Aeneid, VI 795.
“Tutta lontana dal camin del sole.”
—Petrarch, Canzon, 2.
Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there. Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them; but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since. ↩
Shakespeare. ↩
Milton. ↩
“Flammantia moenia mundi.”
—Lucretius, I 74.
“For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels … And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone … This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.”
—Ezekiel, 1:20, 26, 28.
“Οφθαλμῶν μἐν ἄμερσε· δίδου δ” ἠδεῖαν ἀοιδήν.
—Hom. Odyssey, Θ 64.
Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden’s rhimes. ↩
“Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?”
—Job 39:19.
“Words, that weep, and tears, that speak.”
—Cowley.
We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia’s Day; for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason indeed of late days has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his Choruses—above all in the last of Caractacus: Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread? etc. ↩
Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον
—Olymp. II
Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise. ↩
Niflheimr, the hell of the Gothic nations, consisted of nine worlds, to which were devoted all such as died of sickness, old-age, or by any other means than in battle. Over it presided Hela, the Goddess of Death. ↩
Lok is the evil Being, who continues in chains till the Twilight of the Gods approaches, when he shall break his bonds; the human race, the stars, and sun, shall disappear; the earth sink in the seas, and fire consume the skies; even Odin himself and his kindred-deities shall perish. For a further explanation of this mythology, see Mallet’s Introduction to the History of Denmark, 1755, quarto. ↩
The Valkyriur were female Divinities, servants of Odin (or Woden), in the Gothic mythology. Their name signifies “choosers of the slain.” They were mounted on swift horses, with drawn swords in their hands; and in the throng of battle selected such as were destined to slaughter, and conducted them to Valhalla, the hall of Odin, or paradise of the Brave; where they attended the banquet, and served the departed Heroes with horns of mead and ale. ↩
“How quick they wheeled, and, flying, behind them shot
—Milton’s Par. Regained, III 323, 324.
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers.”
“The noise of battle hurtled in the air.”
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II 2.
Colophon
Poetry
includes poems first published between 1747 and 1915 by
Thomas Gray.
This ebook was produced for
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The cover page is adapted from
Thomas Gray,
a painting completed in 1747–1748 by
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