ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

10

Ανθρωπος, ἱκανὴ πρόφασις εἰς τὸ δυστυχεῖν.

MENANDER.

YE distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat❜ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way:

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields belov'd in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain!

15 I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing
My weary soul they seem to soothe,

The motto, from Menander, a Greek writer of comedies in the fourth century before Christ, but whose writings have come down to us in fragments or in adaptations for the Roman stage, may be read in English: "To be a man is reason enough to expect ill-fortune."

4. Henry VI., whom Shakespeare calls Holy King Henry, founded Eton College.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace;
25 Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed

30

To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent

Their murm'ring labours ply
'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty:

35 Some bold adventurers disdain

40

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:

Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,

21. Say, Father Thames. It should be remembered that Gray is writing an ode, and the formal dignity which belongs to that order of composition permits an address which otherwise might seem pompous.

23. Margent green. See Milton's Comus, 232.

36. Reign. See note on the Elegy, line 12.

40. Snatch in Gray's time had not the grotesque notion it now

carries.

The sunshine of the breast:
45 Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

50

And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

55 Yet see, how all around 'em wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, shew them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murth'rous band!
60 Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;
65 Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth

That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair,
70 And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high,

60. Men; and therefore doomed to ill-fortune, as in the motto. 61. The murth'rous band in the next twenty lines is resolved into its members.

To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

75 The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

80

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness laughing wild

Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath

A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen:

85 This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:

90

Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,

That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

95 Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,

100

And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ; — where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

81. As the band stood in ambush, so these later enemies are down below in the valley whither the Etonians are to descend. 86. It is worth while to read this line slowly to note why Gray used the words he did.