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81. "O God! Our Help in Ages Past." This superb invocation is unquestionably Watts's masterpiece.

94. "Echo's Lament for Narcissus." From 66 'Cynthia's Revels," acted 1600. Division, "A rapid musical phrase generally sung on a single syllable and with one breath." ("Elizabethan Lyrics," p. 259.)

94. "The Spring." Prick-song, refers to a piece of music which has been pricked down or written; so called from the points or dots of the musical notation.

98. "Spring." From "Valentinian," acted about 1616. A second stanza, beginning, "Yet the lusty spring hath stayed," is, as commonly, omitted.

104. "Welcome, Welcome." usual Elizabethan meaning.

105. "The Maid of Neidpath."

Still (1. 9), ever, always; the

Neidpath Castle is near

Peebles; it belonged to the Earls of March. This lyric, composed in 1806, was founded on fact. For the authentic story see Scott's "Lyrics and Ballads," edited by Andrew Lang. (London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1894, p. 5.)

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107. "Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred." 109. My Heart's in the Highlands." valleys, usually river-courses.

Fancy, love.
Straths, wide, open

113. "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." The stanza, "Thou, O Christ, art all I want," is omitted.

116. "
Elizabeth of Bohemia." Daughter of James I.
117. Mary Morison."

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dressed, handsome.

Stoure, conflict, strife; braw, finely

117. "Take, O Take Those Lips Away." A second stanza, "Hide, O hide those hills of snow," etc., was added by Fletcher, and may be found in his "Bloody Brother," v. 2.

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I 20. Jean." Airts, quarters, points of the compass; row, roll. 121. "True Rest." Concluding stanzas of the well-known poem beginning, "Sweet is the pleasure,” etc.

133. "Bonnie Wee Thing." Tine, lose; stounds, aches.

147.

"The Nightingale.' Up-till, up against; King Pandion, father to Philomela, the nightingale; lapp'd in lead, allusion to the old custom of rolling a corpse in a sheet of lead.

152. "Divina Commedia." The opening sonnet of the beautiful sonnet-sequence bearing this title.

155. "A Bard's Epitaph." Blate, shy, modest; snool, cringe; sing dool, lament.

I 57. "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Written in December, 1861. The title was suggested by James T. Fields, who accepted the lines for publication in the Atlantic Monthly. Adapted to the familiar marching melody, “John Brown's Body," the song soon became very popular, and was sung all over the North before the close of the Civil War.

160. “O Captain! My Captain." Written in commemoration of Lincoln's death.

163. "To Stella." Without, unless; wit, mind, understanding. 166. "De Sheepfol'." This little masterpiece in the dialect of the American negro was first published in the author's “Towhead," 1884. Mrs. Greene is best known perhaps by "Cape Cod Folks," 1881.

169. "To His Conscience." Wind, wind about, turn 'round. 171. "Revolutions." Nativity, etc., an astrological allusion: "When a star has risen and entered on the full stream of light;" crooked eclipses, i. e., "as coming athwart the sun's apparent course." (Palgrave.)

176. "Morning Prayer." The first four out of eight lines constituting "Matins, or Morning Prayer." (Palgrave's "Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick" [G. T. Š.], p. 165.)

177. "The Nile." Sesostris, see note on Mifflin's "Sesostris," supra.

179. "Shall I Compare Thee," etc. Fair thou owest, beauty thou ownest.

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179. "Bright Star," etc. Keats's last sonnet. Nature's Eremite: like a solitary thing in Nature. (Eremite hermit, anchorite.) 182. "Of His Love's Beauty." Concluding lines of "Charis' Triumph."

186. "Old Ironsides." "Old Ironsides " was the popular name for the frigate Constitution. Doctor Holmes's lines appeared in the Boston Advertiser at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for service.

187. "The Harp That Once through Tara's Halls." Tara, a place in County Meath, Ireland, twenty-one miles from Dublin, celebrated in the early history of Ireland as a royal residence.

199. "Contentment." Mean, the middle part in three-part music. There is here a play on the ordinary sense of the word. 200. "On Himself." Some critics have held this to be the finest quatrain in the language.

Cortez

207. "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.'" should of course be Balboa, yet a minor historical inaccuracy may well be ignored in so magnificent a sonnet.

208. "Joy," from "The Angel in the House," Canto VII., "The Revulsion," Prelude I., "Joy and Use."

208. "Silence." "This sonnet ranks among the twelve finest sonnets in the language." (Sharp.)

211. "True Greatness." Seld, seldom.

213. "On the Prospect of Planting Arts," etc. The author of these lines was an Irish prelate (of English descent) of the Church of England. His philosophical writings are noted for their extreme subjective idealism. Bishop Berkeley lived in America 1729-1731.

220. "Grace for a Child." Paddocks, frogs.

222. "Proud Maisie." Of this song from "The Heart of Midlothian," Mr. Palgrave says, "Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than this little song."

224. "A vision." Extract from a much longer poem, though frequently printed by itself.

232. "On His Own Blindness." The second of two sonnets written about 1655, and addressed to Mr. Cyriack Skinner, an intimate friend and pupil of the poet.

232. "To the Lord General Cromwell." Written in May, 1652, when Cromwell was not yet Protector, though the leading man in the nation. He had just returned from his Irish and Scotch campaigns, which included the decisive victories of Dunbar (Sept. 3, 1650), and Worcester (Sept. 3, 1651).

235. "On His Deceased Wife." The reference is to the poet's second wife, Catharine Woodcock, who died in childbirth (1658), fifteen months after her marriage. Her face was veiled: Milton had married her after he was blind, and had never seen her features.

236. "The Sirens' Song." Lines 5, 6: "The aromatic herbs with which the phoenix built its nest on preparing to die in the flames; hence appropriately an urn as well as nest." (Schelling.) Cf. "The phoenix builds her spicy nest" (Carew), p. 74.

237. "Epitaph on Countess of Pembroke." The first of two stanzas. The second is so notably inferior to the other that it is seldom quoted. Some modern editors attribute this famous epitaph to William Browne.

242. "The Men of Gotham."

The catch sung by Mr. Hilary

and the Rev. Mr. Larynx, "Nightmare Abbey."

244. "I Wish I Were by That Dim Lake." Of this poem Edgar Poe expressed the opinion (in "The Poetic Principle") that it is as profoundly imaginative as any lyric in the language. The editor has taken the liberty to change the verb in the first line from was, as written by Moore, to were. The allusion is to a dreary spot in Donegal called "Patrick's Purgatory," about which many superstitions have clustered. The lake referred to became the mystic theatre of a fabled intermediate state, and was, during the Dark Ages, the resort of pilgrims from all over Europe."

247. "Dream Pedlary." The opening stanzas of a longer poem.

254. "Renouncement." Rosetti said of this poem that it was one of the three finest sonnets ever written by a woman. See Sharp's " Sonnets of the Century."

256. "To a Waterfowl." Line 7: later editions of Bryant have, "As, darkly seen against the crimson sky."

260. "Fredericksburg." Fredericksburg is the city in Virginia, U. S. A., where Lee defeated Burnside, Dec. 13, 1862. 264. "Rustic Joys." Tutties, nosegays; silly, simple.

267. "Auld Lang Syne." Gowans, daisies; fiere, comrade; guid-willie waught, hearty draught.

269. "A Prayer." In Southey's works these lines have the title, "Imitated from the Persian."

270. "Care-charming Sleep." From "Valentinian," acted about 1616.

272. "Evening Hymn." From "Religio Medici."

273. "Love." From the " Miscellaneous Thoughts" in Butler's "Remains." Several lines are omitted.

276. "A Father's Blessing." "To his son Vincent on his birthday, November, 1630, being then three years old. Corbet was successively Bishop of Oxford and of Norwich." (J. Churton Collins.)

281. "Green Grow the Rashes O." Tapsalteerie, topsy-turvy. 287. "To an Athlete Dying Young." This, together with the selection on page 335, is taken from "A Shropshire Lad" (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.), one of the most remarkable books of verse published in England for many years.

299. "Duncan Gray." Coost, tossed; asklent, askance; unco skeigh, very skittish; gart, made; abeigh, aloof, off: fleech'd, wheedled; grat, wept; lowpin', etc., leaping over a waterfall; crouse, canty, lively, jolly.

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302. Pack, Clouds, Away." Stare, starling.

310. "Willie Winkie." Tirlin', rattling, tapping; singin' gay thrums, purring gaily; speldered, sprawled; gie a cheep, make a sound; waukrife, wakeful, wide-awake; glow'rin', staring; skir lin', screaming; in a creel: a creel is a willow basket used for holding fish, hence, probably, as restless as a fish in a basket. But the phrase, "to be in a creel" means usually to be puzzled or perplexed, and is perhaps derived from the old Scottish marriage custom of "creeling." See Cambridge edition of Burns, notes, p. 331. The first couplet of the last stanza is freely paraphrased in a well-known English version as follows:

"Wearied is the mother that has a restless wean,

A wee, frumpy bairnie, heard whene'er he's seen."

310. "Sound, Sound the Clarion." A motto from "Old Mortality." "These four lines contain the very essence of Scott's poetry." (Andrew Lang.)

311. "The Girl Describes Her Fawn." Selected passage from a poem of considerable length.

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314. Come, Thou Monarch of the Vine." A catch from 'Antony and Cleopatra." Pink eyne, small eyes; vats, the folio reads, fats.

315. "Sleep." Prease, press, throng. In right, by right.

318. "The Twa Corbies." Corbies, crows; fail, turf; theek, thatch.

319. "The Mermaid Tavern." It was at this famous tavern that Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and their confrères met familiarly. Bowse, booze.

322. "Lament of the Border Widow." Poin'd, seized; happed, covered.

328. "The White Island."

Candour, whiteness. 335. "Breathes There the Man." From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Canto VI.

336. "Rules and Lessons." Fair-day: the meaning is obscure, and hardly less so in the original text (1650), where the word is far-day, i. e., the advanced part of the day; prevent, anticipate. 338. "Absence." Appeared in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602. A third stanza, My senses want their outward motions," is omitted. Close, secret.

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339. "O Fain Would I." From the first "Westminster Drollery," 1671, where it appears under the title of "A Song at the Duke's House."

342. "Charlie He's My Darling." Scroggy, scrubby.

343. "Hohenlinden." A battle fought near Munich, Dec. 2, 1800, between the French and Austrians.

344. "Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes."

Yowes, ewes; knowes,

knolls, hillocks; burnie rowes, brook flows; lift, sky.

346. "Rosaline." The third stanza, "Her neck is like a stately tower," etc., is omitted.

359. Preparations." This poem was discovered by Bullen and printed in his "More Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books," from a MS. in the library of Christ Church College, Oxford. Order taken, arrangements made; dazie, canopy of state.

360. "The Burning Babe." Fry, in the old-time sense of burn. Southwell was a Jesuit priest who was imprisoned, racked, and finally executed by the government of Elizabeth because of his sturdy adherence to the Catholic faith. Jonson told Drummond that, "So he had written that piece of Southwell's, The Burning Babe,' he would be content to destroy many of his."

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365. "At a Solemn Music." Concent, harmony.

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