SCENE II. OTHO, POPPAA.

Thanks to the rosy

Otho. Thus far we're safe.

queen

Of amorous thefts: and had her wanton son
Lent us his wings, we could not have beguil'd
With more elusive speed the dazzled sight
Of wakeful jealousy. Be gay securely;
Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim'rous cloud
That hangs on thy clear brow. So Helen look'd,
So her white neck reclin'd, so was she borne
By the young Trojan to his gilded bark
With fond reluctance, yielding modesty,
And oft reverted eye, as if she knew not
Whether she fear'd, or wish'd to be pursued.

*

*

*

SONNET

ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST.

[The MS. of this sonnet, here printed for the first time as Gray wrote it, exists at Pembroke College. At the close Gray has written: "At Stoke, Aug. 1742."-ED.]

IN vain to me the smileing Mornings shine,

And redning Phoebus lifts his golden Fire: The Birds in vain their amorous Descant joyn; Or chearful Fields resume their green Attire:

These Ears, alas! for other Notes repine,

A different Object do these Eyes require : My lonely Anguish melts no Heart but mine; And in my Breast the imperfect Joys expire. Yet Morning smiles the busy Race to chear,

And new-born Pleasure brings to happier Men: The Fields to all their wonted Tribute bear;

To warm their little Loves the Birds complain :
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.

HYMN TO IGNORANCE.

A FRAGMENT.

[Probably written in December 1742, immediately upon Gray's arrival at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. No MS. of this poem has been seen by me.—ED.]

HAIL, horrors, hail! ye ever gloomy bowers,
Ye gothic fanes, and antiquated towers,
Where rushy Camus' slowly-winding flood
Perpetual draws his humid train of mud:
Glad I revisit thy neglected reign,

Oh take me to thy peaceful shade again.
But chiefly thee, whose influence breathed from high
Augments the native darkness of the sky;
Ah, ignorance! soft salutary power!
Prostrate with filial reverence I adore.
Thrice hath Hyperion roll'd his annual race,
Since weeping I forsook thy fond embrace.

Oh say, successful dost thou still oppose
Thy leaden ægis 'gainst our ancient foes?
Still stretch, tenacious of thy right divine,
The massy sceptre o'er thy slumb'ring line?
And dews Lethean through the land dispense
To steep in slumbers each benighted sense?
If any spark of wit's delusive ray
Break out, and flash a momentary day,
With damp, cold touch forbid it to aspire,
And huddle up in fogs the dang'rous fire.

Oh say-she hears me not, but, careless grown,
Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne.
Goddess! awake, arise! alas, my fears!
Can powers immortal feel the force of years?
Not thus of old, with ensigns wide unfurl'd, ·
She rode triumphant o'er the vanquish'd world;
Fierce nations own'd her unresisted might,
And all was ignorance, and all was night.

Oh! sacred age! Oh! times for ever lost! (The schoolman's glory, and the churchman's boast.) For ever gone-yet still to fancy new,

Her rapid wings the transient scene pursue,
And bring the buried ages back to view.

High on her car, behold the grandam ride

Like old Sesostris with barbaric pride; *** a team of harness'd monarchs bend

THE ALLIANCE OF

EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT.

A FRAGMENT.1

[This poem was written in August 1748, at Cambridge. While it was being composed Montesquieu's L'Esprit des Lois fell into Gray's hands, and his own treatment of the theme became distasteful to him. "Some years later he thought of

taking it up again, and was about to compose a prefatory Ode to M. de Montesquieu, when that writer died, on the 10th of February 1755, and the whole thing was abandoned."-[Gosse's Life of Gray, pp. 91, 92.] The poem is here printed from Gray's original text, among the Egerton MSS., as far as 1. 56, the rest being in Dr. Wharton's handwriting. There is a complete MS. in Gray's handwriting among the Pembroke MSS.— ED.]

ESSAY I.

Πόταγ ̓, ὦ 'γαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδὰν

Οὔτι πα εἰς Αΐδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλαξεῖς.

Theocritus, Id. I. 63.

As sickly Plants betray a niggard Earth,
Whose flinty2 Bosom starves her generous Birth,
Nor genial Warmth, nor genial Juice retains
Their Roots to feed, and fill their verdant Veins.

And as in Climes, where Winter holds his Reign, The Soil, tho' fertile, will not teem in vain,

1 "Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen ?"-[Gibbon.]

2 Flinty] Barren.

VOL. I

I

Forbids her Gems to swell, her Shades to rise,
Nor trusts her Blossoms to the churlish Skies.

So draw Mankind in vain the vital Airs,
Unform'd, unfriended, by those kindly Cares,
That Health and Vigour to the Soul impart,
Spread the young Thought, and warm the opening
Heart.

So fond Instruction on the growing Powers
Of Nature idly lavishes her Stores,

If equal Justice with unclouded Face
Smile not indulgent on the rising Race,

And scatter with a free, though frugal, Hand
Light golden Showers of Plenty o'er the Land.
But gloomy Sway have1 fix'd her Empire there,
To check their tender Hopes with chilling Fear,
And blast the vernal2 Promise of the Year.

This spacious animated Scene survey
From where the rolling Orb, that gives the Day,
His sable Sons with nearer Course surrounds
To either Pole, and Life's remotest Bounds,
How rude so e'er th' exterior Form we find,
Howe'er Opinion tinge the varied Mind,
Alike to all the Kind impartial Heav'n
The Sparks of Truth and Happiness has given.
With Sense to feel, with Mem'ry to retain,
They follow Pleasure, and they fly from Pain;
Their Judgment mends the Plan their Fancy draws,
Th' Event presages, and explores the Cause.

1 Gloomy sway have] But tyranny has.—[MS.]
2 Vernal] Blooming.-[MS.]