Poets From England

"Man dwells apart, though not alone, He walks among his peers unread; The best of thoughts which he hath known, For lack of listeners are not said."

"And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth."

"The while He sits whose name is Love, And waits, as Noah did, for the dove, To wit if she would fly to him.He waits for us, while, houseless things, We beat about with bruised wings On the dark floods and water-springs, The ruined world, the desolate sea; With open windows from the prime All night, all day, He waits sublime, Until the fulness of the time Decreed from His eternity."

"Is there never a chink in the world above Where they listen for words from below?"

"Let me be only sure; for sooth to tell The sorest dole is doubt."

"But two are walking apart forever And wave their hands for a mute farewell."

"Crowds of bees are giddy with clover Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet, Crowds of larks at their matins hang over, Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet."

"Gray, who was at the head of those who by their reasonings have attempted to widen the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical composition, and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of his own poetic diction."

"After the manner of Gilbert White, who, unknown to the poet, was making similar observations at Selborne, Gray kept a calendar in which he noted the opening of flowers and the arrival of birds."

"Gray (who joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope, and to whom nothing is wanting to render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have written a little more), is said to have been so much hurt by a foolish and impertinent parody of two of his finest odes, that he never afterwards attempted any considerable work. Those men of letters who value themselves upon what is called fine writing in prose, approach somewhat to the sensibility of poets."

"Spenser was among his favourite poets; and he told me he never sat down to compose poetry without reading Spenser for a considerable time previously."

"Almost all his poetry was lyrical—that species which, issuing from a mind in the highest state of excitement, requires an intensity of feeling which for a long composition the genius of no poet could support. Those who complained of its brevity and rapidity only confessed their own inability to follow the movements of poetical inspiration. Of the two grand attributes of the Ode, Dryden had displayed the enthusiasm, Gray exhibited the magnificence. He is also the only modern English writer whose Latin verses deserve general notice; but we must lament that such difficult trifles had diverted his genius from its natural objects. In his letters he has shown the descriptive powers of a poet, and in new combinations of generally familiar words, which he seems to have caught from Madame de Sevigné (though it must be owned he was somewhat quaint), he was eminently happy. It may be added, that he deserves the comparatively trifling praise of having been the most learned poet since Milton."

"Of all English poets he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendour of which poetical style seems to be capable, if Virgil and his scholar Racine may be allowed to have united somewhat more ease with their elegance, no other poet approaches Gray in this kind of excellence. The degree of poetical invention diffused over such a style, the balance of taste and of fancy necessary to produce it, and the art with which an offensive boldness of imagery is polished away, are not indeed always perceptible to the common reader, nor do they convey to any mind the same species of gratification which is felt from the perusal of those poems which seem to be the unpremeditated effusions of enthusiasm; but to the eye of the critic, and more especially to the artist, they afford a new kind of pleasure, not incompatible with a distinct perception of the art employed, and somewhat similar to the grand emotions excited by the reflection on the skill and toil exerted in the construction of a magnificent palace. They can only be classed among the secondary pleasures of poetry, but they never can exist without a great degree of its higher excellencies."

"Next day I dined with Johnson at Mr. Thrale's. He attacked Gray, calling him "a dull fellow." BOSWELL. "I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry." JOHNSON. "Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull in every where. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT. He was a mechanical poet." He then repeated some ludicrous lines, which have escaped my memory, and said "Is not that GREAT, like his Odes?""

"Gray thought his language more poetical as it was more remote from common use."

"[The editor of Facetiae Cantabrigienses, Richard Gooch writes:] Those who remember Mr. Gray when at the University of Cambridge, where he resided the greater part of his life, will recollect that he was a little prim fastidous man, distinguished by a short shuffling step. He commonly held up his gown behind with one of his hands, at the same time cocking up his chin, and perking up his nose. Christopher Smart, who was contemporary with him at Pembroke Hall, used to say that Gray walked "as if he had fouled his small-clothes, and looked as if he smelt it.""

"I have been reading Gray's Works, and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of sublime... I once thought Swift's letters the best that could be written; but I like Gray's better. His humour, or his wit, or whatever it is to be called, is never ill-natured or offensive, and yet, I think equally poignant with the Dean's."

"Of all the English poets of this age, Mr Gray is most admired, and, I think, with justice; yet there are, comparatively speaking, but a few who know any thing of his, but his "Churchyard Elegy," which is by no means the best of his works."

"Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favourable, have attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic."

"Gray's production was scanty, and scanty, as we have seen, it could not but be. Even what he produced is not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone, or almost alone (for Collins has something of the like merit) in his age. Gray said himself that "the style he aimed at was extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical." Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray's may be said to have reached, in style, the excellence at which he aimed; while the evolution also of such a piece as his Progress of Poesy must be accounted not less noble and sound than its style."

"Gray, a born poet, fell upon an age of prose. He fell upon an age whose task was such as to call forth in general men's powers of understanding, wit and cleverness, rather than their deepest powers of mind and soul."

"The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest."

"Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear; They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, Waves in the eye of Heav'n her many-colour'd wings."

"Visions of glory, spare my aching sight, Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!"

"Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed."

"Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey."

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room and verge enough, The Characters of hell to trace."

"Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes; Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart."

"To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay."

"Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait, Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing They mock the air with idle state."

"No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God."

"Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend."

"Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth. And Melancholy marked him for her own."

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree: Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he."

"Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn."

"E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our Ashes live their wonted Fires."

"For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?"

"And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die."

"Implores the passing tribute of a sigh."

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

"Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind."

"The applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes."

"Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little Tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

"But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul."

"Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."

"Can storied urn, or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?"

"Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave."