The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roof that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing king." How different is the imagery, when Richard the Second is described; and how indistinctly is the luxurious monarch marked out in the form of the morning, and his country in the figure of the vessel! "The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born, Gone to salute the rising morn. Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding on the azure realm, In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm ; That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his ev'ning prey." The last prophecy is that of the civil wars, and of the death of the two young princes. No place, no name is now noted: and all is seen through the dimness of figurative expression: "Above, below, The rose of snow, Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread: The bristled boar In infant gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade." As the subject of Gray's poem is drawn from a period of English history not very remote, it was proper to avoid too circumstantial and plain a description, which would destroy the dignity required.—It appears then, from the obscurity we meet with in almost all prophetic poems, that it belongs to this species of composition: and that those who have attempted to write poems of this character, have felt how necessary it was to surround themselves with some degree of indistinctness proportioned to their taste and judgment. In Lycophron, however, the almost insur VOL. I. t mountable obscurity arises from his strange and pedantic phraseology; in the Agamemnon of Eschylus, from the accidental corruptions of the text, as well as from the metaphorical ornaments and the cumbrous magnificence of his diction. How much to unfold, and what to leave gradually to be discovered; in short, the degree of clearness and obscurity in which a poetical prophecy should be laid before the reader, must always be a difficult part of the poet's business. Gray's judgment is certainly displayed in omitting the names of the personages of this poem ; as in a tale of history so well known, the name would instantly call up the whole circumstances that follow in the recital, and the force of the prophecy would be lessened, or lost. . Before I finish my observations on the prophetic character of this ode, I must remark, that there appears to me one passage, and only one, in which I cannot help considering the unity of the poetical thoughts, and the tendency of the poem to produce one particular effect upon the mind, imperfectly preserved. It is apparent, that the agitation of the bard's mind is extreme; his anger, his scorn, his hatred of the tyrant, his sorrow for his friends, and his contempt for a desolate and dishonoured life, is forcibly described. This character is uniformly sustained, till he has finished his poetical destiny of Edward and his successors; and then, as if he was overwhelmed with a fresh tide of indignation, and withholding his greatest blow for the last, he returns from denouncing woe on the blood of the Plantagenets, to Edward himself: and to make his last denunciation of wrath more dreadful, he foretells the speedy death of his wife-his beloved Eleanor of Castile: "Half of thy heart we consecrate. (The web is wove. The work is done.)" That such impetuosity of feeling may suddenly be changed into great and unexpected* joy, is not unnatural; and accordingly when he foresees the restoration of his own country, in the Welsh descent of the House of Tudor, he with poetical truth of character breaks out into an exultation, founded as well on the future prosperity of his own race, as on the baffled and frustrated cruelty of the tyrant. This joy is finely expressed in the apostrophe to the shade of Taliessin : "Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear! They breathe a soul to animate thy clay." And if this impetuosity of feeling had been carried on by the address to Edward: "Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day?" &c. the whole poem would have preserved a uniform and consistent character. The bard, however, in the last stanza, and just before he "plunges into endless night," points out the future poets, who were to adorn the reign of Elizabeth, in the following lines:" "The verse adorn again Fierce war, and faithful love, And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. In buskin'd measures move Pale grief, and pleasing pain, With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire." &c. * On the sudden, and violent nature of the passion of Joy; and its great difference, in this respect, from the opposite passion of Grief, see Ad. Smith's History of Astronomy, p.8, 4to. Independently of the interruption which these lines, by their length, give to the uniformity of the emotion, perhaps they are not (however beautiful) well adapted to the character of the Welsh bard at any time; and surely every one must acknowledge that they are most unsuited in subject-matter, in expression, and turn of feeling, to the awful situation in which he stood, and the deed which he was just preparing to commit; the revival of the Bards, it also must be remarked, is sufficiently noticed in the preceding stanza : "What strings symphonious tremble in the air, What strains of vocal transport round her play!" Gray writing a letter to Mr. Mason says, speaking of this poem: "I am well aware of many weakly things towards the conclusion, but hope the end itself will do."-As there is certainly nothing weak in the preceding stanza, it is fair to suppose that he alluded to these verses, which I have just cited; and the criticism on which, I must leave to the opinion of the reader; just adding, that I think he will perceive, upon a careful perusal of them, something which indicates that they were composed after the first heat of the composition was past. There is a calmness, a care, an orna * * The allegory in which the reign of Richard the Second is described, and which I have already quoted, is remarkable, I think, for the extreme beauty of the transition by which it is introduced. "Gone to salute the rising morn.” With true lyrical spirit, the last image at once gives a train of thought to the poet's mind, and he suddenly breaks forth: "Fair laughs the morn," &c. Whether this allegorical allusion may not, by some, be deemed to be too far extended, considering the passionate emotion of the bard's mind, may at least be suggested. Dr. Priestly has justly pointed out the distinctive propriety of the short metaphor, or the extended allegory, ment about them, very different from the real language of passion so admirably sustained through the rest of the poem. So far as to the prophetic cast of this ode. It is called a Pindaric ode, with greater propriety than perhaps has been generally remarked; I mean, with regard to the form and structure of its measure. The English odes of Cowley, and of other authors which they have called Pindaric, and which they have formed in measures of irregular versification, unconfined but by the fancy of the author, have been so denominated by a peculiar and unfortunate misnomer. Among the Greek writers, that quality which particularly distinguished the odes of Pindar from those of later writers, was the confinement of his metre, and the regularity of his strophe and antistrophe. Οὔκετι, says Aristotle,* ἐχοῦσιν Αντιστρόφους, πρότερον δὲ εἴχον. It appears · that the principal authors of this lyrical corruption, were Timotheus and Philoxenus. Dionysius,† in his nineteenth section of his Treatise περὶ Συνθέσεως Ονόματων, says, Παρά γε τοῖς ἀρχαίοις, τεταγμένος ἦν ὁ διθύgaubos. According to Dionysius, there were three several changes in the lyrical poem, or ode. Alcæus and Sappho, the oldest writers in this line, had short strophes and antistrophes, consisting of a few lines each, and very short epodes. Stesichorus and Pindar enlarged and lengthened them, μείζους ἐργασάμενοι τὰς περιόδους, εἰς πολλὰ μέτρα, καὶ κῶλα, διένειμαν αὐτὰς. But the Dithyrambic poets who followed, Timotheus, Telestes, and Phi according to the situation. "Extended similes give universally more satisfaction in the description of a still scene, than in the representation of a very active and busy one. In the former case, the mind is in no haste, as we may say, to return to the principal subject: in the latter, it is often impatient of the least diversion from it." The reader may find some very sound observations on this subject, supported by sufficient examples, in his Lectures on Oratory and Criticism, p. 174, 4to. And Webb, on Poetry, p. 107. *Vid. Aristot. Problemata xix. Sect. 15. + Vid. Dionys. de Structura Orationis, ed. Upton, p. 156. |