Hark! 'tis nature strikes the lyre,
And leads the genʼral song:
Warm let the lyric transport flow,
Warm as the ray that bids it glow;
And animates the vernal grove

With health, with harmony, and love.'

Yesterday the sullen year

Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now that wildly flow,
No yesterday nor morrow know;
'Tis man alone that joy descries
With forward, and reverted eyes.

Smiles on past misfortune's brow

Soft reflection's hand can trace;

V. 25. Milt. Son. xx. 3. " Help waste a sullen day.” Luke.

V. 31. "Sure he that made us with such large discourse Looking before and after." Hamlet, act iv. sc. 4. Imperat, ante videt, perpendit, præcavit, infit."

Prudent. P 374. ed Delph. V. 41. "Where Pleasure's roses void of serpents grow." Thomson. C. of Ind. c. ii. st. lvii. Luke. V. 43. Dr. Warton refers to Pope. Essay on Man, ii. 270:

"See some strange comfort every state attend,

And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend:
See some fit passion every age supply:

Hope travels on, nor quits us till we die."

See Casimir Od. :

"Alterno redeunt choro

Risus et gemitus, et madidis prope

And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;

While hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue ;
Behind the steps that misery treads,
Approaching comfort view:

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastis'd by sabler tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

See the wretch, that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,

Sicci cum lacrymis joci

Nascuntur mediis gaudia luctibus."

V. 45. "Here sweet, or strong, may every colour flow; Here let the pencil warm, the colours glow;

V. 49.

Of light and shade provoke the noble strife,
And wake each striking feature into life."

Brown. Essay on Satire, ii. 358.

"O! jours de la convalescence !

Jours d'une pure volupté :

C'est une nouvelle naissance,

Un rayon d'immortalité.

Quel feu! tous les plaisirs ont volé dans mon âme,
J'adore avec transport le céleste flambeau ;
Tout m'intéresse, tout m' enflâme-

Pour moi, l'univers est nouveau.

Les plus simples objects; le chante d'un Fauvette,

At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again :
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.

Humble quiet builds her cell,

Near the source whence pleasure flows; She eyes the clear crystalline well,

And tastes it as it goes.

'While' far below the madding' crowd
Rush headlong to the dangerous flood,'
Where broad and turbulent it sweeps,
'And' perish in the boundless deeps.

Mark where indolence and pride,

'Sooth'd by flattery's tinkling sound,'

Go, softly rolling, side by side,

Their dull but daily round:

To these, if Hebe's self should bring

Le matin d'un beau jour, la verdure des bois,
La fraicheur d'une violette;

Milles spectacles, qu'autrefois

On voyoit avec nonchalance,

Transportent aujourd'hui, présentent des appas
Inconnus à l' indifférence,

Et que la foule ne voit pas." Gresset. tom. i. p. 145. V. 55. "Communemque prius, ceu lumina solis." Ovid. Met. i. 135. "Nec solem proprium natura, nec aëra fecit." Ovid. Met. vi. 350. "Ne lucem, quoque hanc quæ communis est." Cicero. "Sol omnibus lucet." Pet. Arb. c. 100. "Communis cunctis viventibus aura." Prudent. Sym. ii. 86. "The common benefit of vital air." Dryden.

The purest cup from pleasure's spring,
Say, can they taste the flavour high
Of sober, simple, genuine joy?

'Mark ambition's march sublime

Up to power's meridian height;
While pale-eyed envy sees him climb,
And sickens at the sight.

Phantoms of danger, death, and dread,
Float hourly round ambition's head;
While spleen, within his rival's breast,
Sits brooding on her scorpion nest.

'Happier he, the peasant, far,

From the pangs of passion free,

That breathes the keen yet wholesome air

Of rugged penury.

He, when his morning task is done,
Can slumber in the noontide sun;
And hie him home, at evening's close,
To sweet repast, and calm repose.

70

75

80

85

V. 56. "Balm from open'd Paradise." v. Fairfax. Tasso, iv. 75. Luke. "And Paradise was open'd in the wild." Pope. "And paradise was open'd in his face." Dryden. Absalom, ed. Derrick, vol. i. p. 116.

V. 59. So Milton accents the word:

"On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd."

Par. Lost, b. vi. ver 772.

V. 65. "Tout s'émousse dans l'habitude;

L'amour s'endort sans volupté;

Las des mêmes plaisirs, las de leur multitude,
Le sentiment n'est plus flatté."

'He, unconscious whence the bliss,
Feels, and owns in carols rude,
That all the circling joys are his,
Of dear Vicissitude.

From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,

In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.'

95

TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM

STATIUS.*

THEB. LIB. VI. VER. 704-724.

THIRD in the labours of the disc came on,
With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon;
Artful and strong he pois'd the well-known weight
By Phlegyas warn'd, and fir'd by Mnestheus' fate,
That to avoid, and this to emulate.

His vigorous arm he tried before he flung,
Brac'd all his nerves, and every sinew strung;
Then, with a tempest's whirl, and wary eye,
Pursu'd his cast, and hurl'd the orb on high;

5

* This translation, written at the age of twenty, which Gray sent to West, consisted of about a hundred and ten lines. Mason selected twenty-seven lines, which he published, as Gray's first attempt at English verse; and to show how much he had imbibed of Dryden's spirited manner at that early period of his life. See the memoirs, vol. ii.