ODES.

I. ON THE SPRING.

[The original manuscript title given by Gray to this Ode, was 'Noontide.' It appeared for the first time in Dodsley's Collection, vol. ii. p. 271, under the title of Ode.' See Meleager's Ode to Spring, and Jones. Comm. Poes. Asiaticæ. p. 411. This Ode is formed on Horace's Ode ad Sestium, i. iv. Translated into Latin in Musæ Etonens. Vol. ii.

p. 60.]

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours, a

Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!

NOTES Hours."

ها

то

Ver. 1. "The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Milton. Comus, v. 984. W. Thoms. Spring, 1007.

V. 2. So Homer. Hymn. ad Vener. ii. 5:

τὴν δὲ χρυσάμπυκες ὥραι

Δέξαντ' ἀσπασίως περὶ δ' ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἔσσαν.

The Hours also are joined with Venus in the Hymn. ad Apollin. v. 194. And Hesiod places them in her train :

ἄμφι δὲ τήνγε

Ωραι καλλίκομοι στέφον ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσι. Erg. ver. 75.
V. 3. "At that soft season when descending showers

Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flowers. Pope. Temple of Fame, b. i. v. 1. W.-In some editions, "expected" is printed for "expecting." "The flowers that in its womb expecting lie." Dryden. Astræa Redux. Rogers,

V. 4. Apuleius. Nuptiis Cupid. et Psyc. vi. p. 427, ed. Oudendorp: "Hore, rosis, et cæteris floribus purpurabant

The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink

With me the Muse shall sit, and think

omnia."

15

Also in the Pervigil. Vener. v. 13: "Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus.” Pope has the same expression in his Past. i. 28: "And lavish Nature paints the purple year. “Gales that wake the purple year.” Mallet. Zephyr.

V. 5. Martial. Epig. i. 54: « Sic ubi multisona fervet sacer Atthide lucus.” Also in the Epitaphium Athenaidos apud Fabrettum, p. 702: Cum te, nate, fleo, planctus dabit Attica Aedon." And "Attica volucris." Propert. II. xvi. 6. Ovid. Halieut. v. 110: "Attica avis vernâ sub tempestate queratus.' Add Senecæ Herc. Et. v. 200. And Milton. Par. R. iv. 245: "The Attic bird trills her thick-warbled notes." The expression "pours her throat" is from Pope. Essay on Man, iii. 33: "Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?" So Ovid. Trist iii. 12. 8. "Indocilique loquax gutture vernat avis."

V. 7

"The hollow Cuckoo sings

The symphony of Spring."

Thoms. Spring. Luke.

V. 10.

-"Fresh gales and gentle airs

Whisper'd it to the woods." Par. L. viii. 515.

v. Comus. v. 989. and P. L. iv. 327.

V. 12. Milton. Par. L. iv. 246:

"The unpierc❜d shade

"Cool Zephyr." Luke.

(At ease reclin❜d in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:

Yet, hark, how thro' the peopled air

Var, V. 19. "How low, how indigent the proud,
How little are the great!"

20

So these lines appeared in Dodsley. The variation, as Mason informs us, was subsequently made to avoid the point "little and great."

imbrown'd the noontide bowers." "And breathes a browner horror o'er the woods," Pope. Eloisa, 170. W.-Thomson. Cast. of Ind. i. 38: “ Or Autumn's varied shades imbrown the walls."

V. 13. “A bank o'ercanopied with luscious woodbine." Mids. N. Dr. act ii. sc. 2. Gray.

"The beech shall yield a cool safe canopy.” Fletcher. Purpl. Is. i. v. 30. And T. Warton's note on Milton's Comus, v. 543.

V. 15. "The rushy-fringed bank." Comus. Luke.

V. 22. “Patula pecus omne sub ulmo est." Pers. Sat. iii. 6. W.- But Gray seems to have imitated Pope. Past. ii. 86:

"The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat,

To closer shades the panting flocks remove:

"Jam pastor umbras cum grege languido

وو

Rivumque fessus quærit." Hor. lib. III. Od. xxix. 21.

V. 23. Thomson. Autumn, 836: "Warn'd of approaching winter, gather'd, play the swallow-people." And Walton.

Complete Angler, p. 260: " Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing." Add Beaumont. Psyche, st. lxxxviii. p. 46: "Every tree empeopled was with birds of softest throats." so Alciphr. Ep. p. 341. Sýμov õλov öpvewv. and Max. Tyr. See Reiske's note, p. 82.

The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon :
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some shew their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of Man:

And they that creep, and they that fly,

Shall end where they began.

Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro' life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colors drest:

25

30

35

V. 24. Thus Milton. Par. R. iv. 248: "The sound of bees' industrious murmur. Wakefield quotes Thomson. Spr. 506: "Thro' the soft air the busy nations fly." And, 649: "But restless hurry thro' the busy air." Compare also Pope. T. of Fame, 294.

V. 25. "Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold." Pope. Rape of the Lock, ii. 59. W. This expression may have been suggested by a line in Green's Hermitage, quoted in Gray's Letter to Walpole: (see note at ver. 31.)

"From maggot-youth thro' change of state

They feel, like us, the turns of fate.'

V. 26. See Milton, as quoted by Wakefield: II Pen. 142, Lycid. 140, Sams. Ag. 1066.

V. 27. "Nare per æstatem liquidam," Georg. iv. 59. Gray. To which, add Georg. i. 404; and Æn. v. 525; x. 272. "There I suck the liquid air." Milton. Comus, v. 980.

V. 30. " Sporting with quick glance, shew to the sun their wav'd coats dropp'd with gold," Par. L. vii. 410. Gray. - See also Pope, Hom. Il. ii. 557; and Essay on Man, iii. 55.

V. 31. "While insects from the threshold preach," Green, in the Grotto. Dodsley, Misc. v. p. 161. Gray. —Gray, in a

Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply :

Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display :
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone
We frolic while 'tis May.

40

letter to H. Walpole, says: (see Walpole's Works, vol. v.
p. 395.) “I send you a bit of a thing for two reasons; first,
because it is one of your favorite's, Mr. M. Green; and next,
because I would do justice: the thought on which my second
Ode turns, (The Ode to Spring, afterwards placed first, by
Gray,) is manifestly stole from thence. Not that I knew it
at the time, but having seen this many years before; to be
sure it imprinted itself on my memory, and forgetting the
author, I took it for my own. Then follows the quotation
from Green's Grotto. Wakefield seems to have discovered the
original of this stanza in some lines in Thomson. Summer, 342.
V. 37. «The varied colours run," Thoms. Spring. Luke.
V. 47.

"From branch to branch the smaller birds with song Solac'd the woods, and spread their painted wings.' Par. L. vii. 438. W. And so Thomson. Spring, 582; Virg. Georg. iii. 243; Æn. iv. 525; Claudian, xv. 3. "Pictisque plumis." Phædri Fab. iii. v. 18.

V. 49. Iláve' äλov äμμí dεdúкεw. Theocrit. Idyll. i. 102. W. Alexis ap. Stobum. lib. exv.: *Hôn vào ô Bíos buòs 'Eоréрav йyεt. Plato has the same metaphorical expression :