Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 1, The Ninth Edition/Notes
QUOTATIONS, NOTES,
and EXPLANATIONS.
Line 13.
Ah! then, how dear the Muse's favours cost,
If those paint sorrow best—who feel it most!
'The well-sung woes shall soothe my pensive ghost;
'He best can paint them who shall feel them most.'
Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, 366th line.
Line 3.
Anemonies, that spangled every grove.
Anemony Nemeroso. The wood Anemony.
Line 1.
The idea from the 43d Sonnet of Petrarch. Secondo parte.
'Quel rosigniuol, che si soave piagne.'
Line 2.
Your turf, your flowers among.
'Whose turf, whose shades, whose flowers among.'
Gray.
Line 9.
Aruna!
The river Arun.
Line 12.
'For me the vernal garland blooms no more.'
Pope's Imit. 1st Ode 4th Book of Horace.
Line 13
'Misery's love.'
Shakspeare's King John.
Line 4
'On the night's dull ear.'
Shakspeare.
Line 5.
Whether on Spring—Alludes to the supposed migration of the Nightingale.
Line 7.
The pensive Muse shall own thee for her mate.
'Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate.
'Both them I serve, and of their train am I.'
Milton's First Sonnet.
Line 14.
Have power to cure all sadness—but despair!
'To the heart inspires
'Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
'All sadness but despair.'
Paradise Lost, Fourth Book.
Line 10.
And laugh at tears themselves have forced to flow.
'And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
'That mocks the tear it forced to flow.'
Gray.
Line 4.
Float in light vision round my aching head.
'Float in light vision round the poet's head.'
Mason.
Line 7.
And the poor sea boy, in the rudest hour,
Enjoys thee more than he who wears a crown.
'Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
'Seal up the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains
'In cradle of the rude impetuous surge?' &c.
Shakspeare's Henry IV.
Line 8.
'And suits the mournful temper of my soul.'
Young.
Line 1.
'Pommi ove'l Sol, occide i fiori e l'erba.'
Petrarch, Sonnetto 112. Parte primo.
Line 1.
'Erano i capei d'oro all aura sparsi.'
Sonnetto 69. Parte primo.
Line 1.
'Se lamentar augelli o verdi fronde.'
Sonnetto 21. Parte secondo.
Line 1.
'Valle che de lamenti miei se piena.'
Sonnetto 33. Parte secondo.
Line 1.
'Scrivo in te l'amato nome
'Di colei, per cui, mi moro.'
This is not meant as a translation; the original is much longer, and full of images, which could not be introduced in a Sonnet.—And some of them, though very beautiful in the Italian, would not appear to advantage in an English dress.
Line 5.
'Poor maniac.'
See the Story of the Lunatic.
'Is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he possesses his reason, or after he has lost it?—Full of hope you go to gather flowers in winter, and are grieved not to find any—and do not know why they cannot be found.'
Sorrows of Werter. Volume Second.
Line 8.
'And drink delicious poison from thine eye.'
Pope.
Line 1.
'I climb steep rocks, I break my way through copses, among thorns and briers which tear me to pieces, and I feel a little relief.'
Sorrows of Werter. Volume First.
Line 1.
'The greater Bear, favourite of all the constellations; for when I left you of an evening it used to shine opposite your window.',
Sorrows of Werter. Volume Second.
Line 1.
'At the corner of the church-yard which looks towards the fields, there are two lime trees—it is there I wish to rest.'
Sorrows of Werter. Volume Second.
Line 1.
'May my death remove every obstacle to your happiness.—Be at peace, I intreat you, be at peace.'
Sorrows of Werter. Volume Second.
Line 11.
When worms shall feed on this devoted heart,
Where even thy image shall be found no more.
From a line in Rousseau's Eloisa.
Line 5.
For with the infant Otway, lingering here.
Otway was born at Trotten, a village in Sussex. Of Woolbeding, another village on the banks of the Arun (which runs through them both), his father was rector. Here it was therefore that he probably passed many of his early years. The Arun is here an
inconsiderable stream, winding in a channel deeply worn, among meadow, heath, and wood.
Line 4.
'Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.'
Thomson.
Line 9.
'Balmy hand to bind.'
Collins.
Line 6.
Bindwith.
The plant Clematis, Bindwith, Virgin's Bower, or Traveller's Joy, which towards the end of June begins to cover the hedges and sides of rocky hollows with its beautiful foliage, and flowers of a yellowish white, of an agreeable fragrance; these are succeeded by seed pods that bear some resemblance to feathers or hair, whence it is sometimes called Old Man's Beard.
Line 9.
Banks! which inspired thy Otway's plaintive strain!
Wilds, whose lorn echoes learn'd the deeper tone
Of Collins' powerful shell!
Collins, as well as Otway, was a native of this country, and probably at some period of his life an inhabitant of this neighbourhood, since in his beautiful Ode on the death of Colonel Ross, he says,
The Muse shall still, with social aid,
Her gentlest promise keep;
E'en humble Harting's cottag'd vale
Shall learn the sad repeated tale,
And bid her shepherds weep.
And in the Ode to Pity;
'Wild Arun too has heard thy strains,
'And Echo, 'midst thy native plains,
Been sooth'd with Pity's lute.
Line 2.
Alpine flowers.
An infinite variety of plants are found on these hills, particularly about this spot: many sorts of
Orchis and Cistus of singular beauty, with several others.
Line 9.
Thy natives.
Otway, Collins, Hayley.
Line 8.
The shrieking night-jar sail on heavy wing.
The night-jar or night hawk, a dark bird not so big as a rook, which is frequently seen of an evening on the downs. It has a short heavy flight, then rests on the ground, and again, uttering a mournful cry, flits before the traveller, to whom its appearance is supposed by the peasants to portend misfortune. As I have never seen it dead, I know not to what species it belongs.
Line 7.
Middleton is a village on the margin of the sea, in Sussex, containing only two or three houses. There were formerly several acres of ground between its small church and the sea, which now, by its continual encroachments, approaches within a few feet of this half-ruined and humble edifice. The wall, which once surrounded the church-yard, is entirely swept away, many of the graves broken up, and the remains of bodies interred washed into the sea: whence human bones are found among the sand and shingles on the shore.
Line 11.
The enthusiast of the lyre who wander'd here.
Collins.—See note to Sonnet 30.
Line 8.
But where now clamours the discordant hern.
In the park at Penshurst is a heronry. The house is at present uninhabited, and the windows of the galleries and other rooms, in which there are many invaluable pictures, are never opened but when strangers visit it.
Line 12.
Algernon Sydney.
Line 4.
Ospray.
The sea-eagle.
Line 12.
A sweet forgetfulness of human care.
Pope.
Line 7.
The lark—the shepherd's clock.
Shakspeare.
Line 14.
line 14.
The mountain goddess, Liberty.
Milton.
Line 8.
'Star of the earth.'
Dr. Darwin.
Line 9.
'The moisten'd blade—'
Walcot's beautiful Ode to the Glow-worm.
This elegy is written on the supposition that an indigent young woman had been addressed by the son of a wealthy yeoman, who, resenting his attachment, had driven him from home, and compelled him to have recourse for subsistence to the occupation of a pilot, in which, in attempting to save a vessel in distress, he perished.
The father dying, a tomb is supposed to be erected to his memory in the church-yard mentioned in Sonnet the 44th. And while a tempest is gathering, the unfortunate young woman comes thither; and courting the same death as had robbed her of her lover, she awaits its violence, and is at length overwhelmed by the waves.
Verse 8. Line 4.
'And fruitless call on him— "who cannot hear."
'I fruitless mourn to him who cannot hear,
'And weep the more because I weep in vain.'
Gray's exquisite Sonnet;
in reading which it is impossible not to regret that he wrote only one.
This little poem was written almost extempore on occasion of a conversation where many pleasant things were said on the subject of flattery; and some French gentlemen who were of the party enquired for a synonym in English to the French word fleurette. The poem was inserted in the two first editions, and having been asked for by very respectable subscribers to the present, it is reprinted. The sonnets have been thought too gloomy; and the author has been advised to insert some of a more cheerful cast. This poem may by others be thought too gay, and is indeed so little in unison with the present sentiments and feelings of its author, that it had been wholly omitted but for the respectable approbation of those to whose judgment she owed implicit deference.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.