The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray/The Progress of Poesy

by Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.^{[N 1]}

[Finished in 1754. Printed together with the Bard, an Ode. Aug. 8, 1757. MS.]

 

Φωνᾶντα συνετοίσιν ἐς
Δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων
Χατίζει. PINDAR. Of. I. v. 152.

 

I. 1.
Awake, Æolian lyre, awake,^{[V 1]}
And give to rapture^{[V 2]} all thy trembling strings.

^{[N 2]}

^[1] From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow, 5
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

^{[N 3]}

^{[N 4]}

^{[N 5]}

^{[N 6]}

^{[N 7]} Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:^{[N 8]}
Now rolling down the steep amain,^{[N 9]} 10
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;^{[V 3]}
The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.^{[N 10]}

I. 2.
Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul,^{[N 11]}
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,^{[N 12]}
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares 15^{[N 13]}
And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War^{[N 14]}
Has curb'd the fury of his car,
And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.^{[N 15]}
Perching on the scept'red hand^{[N 16]} 20
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king^{[N 17]}
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:^{[N 18]}
Quench'd in dark^{[V 4]} clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

I. 3.
Thee the voice, the dance, obey,^{[N 19]} 25
Temper'd to thy warbled lay.^{[N 20]}
O'er Idalia's velvet-green
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
On Cytherea's day;
With antic Sport^{[V 5]}, and blue-eyed Pleasures, 30
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence^{[V 6]} beating,

^{[N 21]}

^{[N 22]}

^{[N 23]}

^{[N 24]}

^{[N 25]} Glance their many-twinkling feet. 35
Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare;
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay.
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way:
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move 40
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

^{[N 26]}

^{[N 27]}

^{[N 28]}

^{[N 29]}

II. 1.
Man's feeble race what ills await!^{[N 30]}
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! 45
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?
Night and all her sickly dews,
Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 50

^{[N 31]}

^{[N 32]}

^{[N 33]}

^{[N 34]} He gives to range the dreary sky;
Till down the eastern cliffs afar^{[V 7]}
Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war.

"One would have thought 't had heard the morning crow, Or seen her well-appointed star Come marching up the eastern hills afar." In Gray's Letter to Dr. Wharton, containing a Journal of bis Tour to the Lakes, he says: "While I was here, a little shower fell, red clouds came marching up the hills from the east," &c. Mason's ed. 4. p. 175, and Warton's Note on Milton, p. 304.

^{[N 35][N 36]}

II. 2.
In climes beyond the solar road,^{[N 37]} 54
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Muse has broke the twilight gloom^{[N 38]}
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.^{[V 8]}
And oft, beneath the od'rous shade
Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, 60

^[2] In loose numbers wildly sweet,
Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen'rous Shame, 64
Th' unconquerable Mind, and freedom's holy flame

II. 3.
Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

^{[N 39]}

^{[N 40]}

^{[N 41]}

^{[N 42]}

^{[N 43]}

^{[N 44]}

^{[N 45]} Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/156 Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/157 Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/158 Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/159 Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/160 Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear, 115
Sailing with supreme dominion
Thro' the azure deep of air:
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run^{[V 9][N 46]}
Such forms^{[V 10]} as glitter in the Muse's ray,

^{[N 47]} With orient hues,^{[N 48]} unborrow'd of the sun: 120
 Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,^{[V 11]}
Beneath the Good how far—but far above the Great.^{[N 49]}

 

---

Variants

1. Var. V. 1. "Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake." MS.
2. Var. V. 2. Rapture] Transport. MS.
3. Var. V. 11. With torrent rapture, see it pour." MS.
4. Var. V. 23. Dark] Black. MS.
5. Var. V. 30. Sport] Sports. MS.
6. Var.V. 34. In cadence] The cadence, MS.
7. Var. V. 52.
   "Till fierce Hyperion from afar
   Pours on their scatter'd rear, his glitt'ring shafts of war,
   Hurls at their flying,
   Hurlso'erheirscatter'd
   Pours on theirshadowy
   Till o'ertheirfrom far
   Ilyperion hurls around his." MS.
   
   
8. Var. V. 57. Buried natives, 'shivering' in the Marg. MS.
   Var. V. 57. Chill abode, 'dull' in the Marg. MS.
9. Var. V. 118.
   "Yet when they first were open'd on the day
   Before his visionary eyes would run." MS.
   
   
10. V. 119. Forms] "shapes." MS.
11. Var. V. 122. "Yet never can he fear a vulgar fate," MS.

Notes

i. 148, vi. 39. Ausonii Mosell, 269: "Luciferique parent letalia tela diei." W. Add Eurip. Phœn, 171. ed. Porson,

Εώοις ὅμοια φλεγέθων
βολαισῖν ἀελίου.



flight, regardless of their noise. Gray. See Spenser, F. Q. V. iv. 42:

"Like to an eagle in his kingly pride
Soaring thro' his wide empire of the aire
To weather his brode sailes."


Cowley, (i. 166. ed. Hurd.) in his Translation of Hor. Od. IV. ii. calls Pindar "the Theban swan:"
"Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air
The Theban swan does upward bear."


Pope. Temple of Fame, 210, has copied Horace, and yoked four swans to the car of the poet:

"Four swans sustain a car of silver bright."

See also Berdmore, Specimens of Lit. Resemblance, p. 102.

1. When the author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty. Gray.
2. V. 1.
   "Awake, my glory: awake, lute and harp."
   David's Psalms. Gray.
   "Awake, awake, my lyre,
   And tell thy silent master's humble tale."
   Cowley. Ode of David, vol. ii. p. 423.
   

   Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, Αιολίς μολπή, Αιολίδες χορδαί, Αιολίδων προὶ aúλov, Æolian song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute. Gray."

   The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions. Gray.
3. V. 3. Thomson has joined the subject and simile in passage strongly resembling this:
   "In thy full language speaking mighty things,
   Like a clear torrent close, or else diffus'd
   A broad majestic stream, and rolling on
   Thro' all the winding harmony of sound."
   Liberty, ii. 257.
   
   
   And see Quinctil. Inst. xii. 10. 61. "At ille qui saxa devolvat," &c.
   In Huntingford, Apology for his Monostrophics, p. 80 referred to by Wakefield, several passages of Pindar are pointed out, to which he supposes that Gray alluded, viz. Ol. ii. 62. 229. vii. 12. xii. 6.
4. V. 4 "The melting voice through mazes running."
   Milt. L'Allegro, 142. Luke.
5. V. 5. Albaque de viridi riserunt lilia prato," Petron. cap. 127. "Ridenti colocasia fundet acantho," Virg. Ecl. iv. 20; and Achilles Tatius has the expression, rÙ méruhov Tμ Lepúpy yeλñ. See Burm. ad Ovid. v. ii. p. 1023.
6. V. 6. "Bibunt violaria fontem," Virg. Georg. iv. ver. 32. W.
   "And mounting in loose robes the skies
   Shed light and fragrance as she flies."
   Green. Spleen, v. 79.
   
   
7. V. 7. This couplet seems to have been suggested by some lines of Pope. Hor. Epist. II. ii. 171:
   "Pour the full tide of eloquence along,
   Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong."
   
   
   Wakefield refers to Pope. Cecilia, 10:
   "While in more lengthen'd notes, and slow,
   The deep majestic solemn organs blow."
   
   
   Dr. Berdmore of the Charter-House, in his pamphlet on Literary Resemblance, p. 16, supposes that Gray had Horace in his mind. Od. III. xxix. 32.
8. V. 9. Shenstone. Inscr. "Verdant vales and fountains bright." Luke.
9. V. 10 "Immensusque ruit profundo Pindarus ore."
   V. 10 "Immensusque ruit profundHor. Od. iv. 2. 8.
10. V. 12. And rocks the bellowing voice of boiling seas resound," Dryden. Virg. Georg, i. "Rocks rebellow to the roar," Pope. Iliad.
11. V. 13. Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. Gray.
12. V. 14. Milton. Comus, 555, "A soft and solemn-breathing sound." See Todd's note.
13. V. 15. While sullen Cares and wither'd Age retreat," Eusden. Court of Venus, p. 101. "Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell," Dryden. Virgil, Æn. vi. 247. "Care shuns thy soft approach, and sullen flies away," Dryden. Ceyx, vol. iv. p. 33, the same expression occurs in many other poets.
14. V. 17. The God of War Was drawn triumphant on his iron ear." Dryden, vol. iii. 60. ed. Warton.
    And Collins in his Ode to Peace, ver. 4:
    "When War by vultures drawn afar, To Britain bent his iron car."

    "Mavortia Thrace," Statii Ach. 1. 201, Theb. vii. 34, and "Mars Thracen occupat," Ovid. Ar. Am. ii. ver. 588. Virg. Æn, iii. 35. "Gradivumque patrem Geticis qui præsidet arvis." v. Bentl. on Hor. Od i. xxv. 19.

15. V. 19."Winn'st from his fatal grasp the spear,"
    Collins. Ode to Mercy, ver. 5.
    In the Lusus Poetici of Jortin (Hymn to Harmony, p. 45.), published in 1722, is the following couplet, strongly resembling Gray's, and from the same source:
    "Thou mak'st the God of War forsake the field,
    And drop his lance, and lay aside his shield."
    
    
    See also Ovid. Fasti, iii. v. 1: "Bellico, depositis clypeo paulisper et hastâ, Mars, ades," Claudiani Præf. in Rufin. lib. ii. "Thirsty blade," Spens. F. Q. i. v. xv.
16. V. 20. This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same ode. Gray. Pyth. i. ver. 10; and see D. Stewart. Philos. Essays, p. 373. For an error in the imagery of this line, see Class. Journ. No. xiii. p. 285.
17. V. 21."Every fowl of tyrant wing,
    Save the Eagle feather'd King.
    Shakes. Pass. Pilg. xx.
18. V. 22. H. Walpole, in describing the famous Boccapadugli eagle, of Greek sculpture, says: "Mr. Gray has drawn the 'flagging wing.'" See Works, vol. ii. p. 463. Philips (Past. 5.) "She hangs her flagging wings;" Luke. Add A. Behn on the D. of Buckingham, v. Works, v. ii. p. 208 "Now with their broken notes and flagging wing," See Wakef. on Virg. Georg. iv. 137; G. Steevens quotes Ronsaid Ode xxii. ed. 1632, fol.
19. V. 25. Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. Gray.
20. V. 26. "Tempering their sweetest notes unto thy lay," Fletcher, P. Island, c. ix. s. iii. and Lycidas, 32. Luke.
21. V. 27. "At length a fair and spacious green he spide,
    Like calmest waters, plain; like velvet, soft."
    Fairfax. Tasso, xiii. 38.
    "She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet-green."
    Young. Love of Fame, Sat. v. p. 128.
    This expression, it is well known, has met with reprehension from Dr. Johnson; who appears by his criticism to have supposed it first^{[C 1]} introduced by Gray. It was numbered, however, among the absurd expressions of Pope, by the authors of the Alexandriad, (some of the heroes of the Dunciad,) see p. 288. It occurs in a list of epithets and nouns which Pope had used, and which these authors held up to ridicule.
22. V. 30."I'll charm the air to give a sound,
    While you perform your antic round."
    Mach. act iv. sc. 1, W.
23. V. 31."In friskful glee, their frolics play,"
    Thoms. Spring. Luke.
24. V. 32. Wakefield refers to Callimachi Iyman. Dian. 3. and Hom. Il. Σ. 593.
25. V. 35. Μαρμαρυγὰς ἐρεῖτο ποδῶν· θαύμαζε δὲ θυμῷ.
    Hom. Od. O. er. 265. Gray.
    "Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
    Of aspin tall."Thoms. Spring, 157. W.
26. V. 36. Compare the following stanza of a poem by Barton Booth, in his Life, written in 1718, published 1733:
    "Now to a slow and melting air she moves,
    So like in air, in shape, in mien,
    She passes for the Paphian queen;
    The Graces all around her play,
    The wond'ring gazers die away;
    Whether her easy body bend,
    Or her faire bosom heave with sighs;
    Whether her graceful arms extend,
    Or gently fall, or slowly rise;
    Or returning or advancing,
    Swimming round, or sidelong glancing,
    Strange force of motion that subdues the soul."
    
    
    And Apuleii. Metam. Lib. x. p. 319. ed Delph.
27. V. 37. For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd."
    Dryden. Flower and Leaf, v. 191.
28. V. 39. Incessu patuit Dea," Virg. Æn. i, 405. And see Heyne's quotation from Eustathius, "On all sides round environ'd, wins his way." Par. Lost, ii, 1016.
29. V. 41. Λάμπει δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρέησί
    Παρείησι φῶς ἔρωτος.
    Phrynicus apud Athenæum. Gray.
    lumenque juventæ
    Purpureum, et letos oculis afflarat honores."
    Virg. Æn. i. 594. W. Add Ovid. Amor, ii. 1. 38: "Purpureus quæ mihi dictat Amor." And ix. 34: Notaque

    purpureus tela resumit Amor." And Art. Amor. i. 232. Fast, vi. 252. "purpurea luce." Dryden. Brit. Rediviva, p. 93: "Breath'd Honour on his eyes, and his own purple light." Pope. Hor. Od. iv. 1. "Smiling loves, and young desires." Rogers.

30. V. 42. To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful presence, to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. Gray.
31. V. 46. "His fond complaints," Addison. Cato, A. 1, 6.
32. V. 49. Wakefield refers to Milton. Hymn to the Nativity, xxvi. and Par. Reg. iv. 419. But a passage in Cowley is pointed out by his last editor, Dr. Hurd, as alluded to by Gray, vol. i. p. 195;
    "Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright,
    And Sleep, the lazy owl of night;
    A sham'd and fearful to appear,
    They skreen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere."
    
    
    Thomson. Spring, "Sickly damps."
33. V. 50. "Love not so much the doleful knell
    And news the boding night-birds tell."
    Green. Grotto, 126.
    "Obscœnique Canes, importunoque Volueres
    Signa dabunt." Virg. Georg. i. v. 470.
    "He withers at the heart, and looks as wan
    As the pale spectre of a murder'd man." Dryden. Pal, and Arcite. B. 1.
34. V. 52. "Or seen the morning's well appointed star
    Come marching up the eastern hills afar."
    Cowley. Gray. The couplet from Cowley has been wrongly quoted by Gray, and so continued by his different editors. It occurs in Brutus, an Ode, stan iv. p. 171. vol. 1. Hurd's ed.
35. V. 53. In Mant's edition of Warton (vol. ii. p. 41), and Steevens's note on Hamlet, (act i. sc. 2), it is remarked that all the English poets are guilty of the same false quantity, with regard to this word, except Akenside, as quoted by Mant, Hymn to the Naiads, 46; and the author of 'Fuimus Troes' by Steevens. See Dodsley. Old Plays, vii. p. 500. The assertions, however, of these learned editors are not correct; as will appear from the following quotations:
    "That Hyperion far beyond his bed
    Doth see our lions ramp, our roses spread."
    Drummond (of Hawthornd.) Wand. Muses, p. 180.
    Then Hyperion's son, pure fount of day,
    Did to his children the strange tale reveal."
    West. Pindar, 01. viii. 22. p. 63.
    
    
    Gray has used this word again with the same quantity Hymn to Ignorance, v. 12: "Thrice hath Hyperion roll'd

    his annual race."^{[C 2]}

36. V. 53. "Non radii solis, neque lucida tela diei," Lucret.
37. V. 54. Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments, the Lapland and American songs.]
    "Extra anni solisque vias—" Virg. Æn. vi. 795.
    "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole." Petr. Canz. 2. Gray.
    "Out of the solar walk, and heaven's high way," Dryden. Threnod, August. st. 12. "Inter solisque vias, Arctosque latentes." Manil, i, 450, Pope also has this expression: "Far as the solar walk and milky way," Essay on Man, ch. i. 102. Stat. Sylv. iv. 3. 156. "Ultra sidera, flammeumque solem." Hekio relevovg. Dionys. Geogr. v. 17.
38. V. 56. The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn." Milton. Hymn to Nativ. st. xx. W.
39. V. 59. "Earth was to them a boundless forest wild." Thoms. C. of Ind. c. ii. st. xiv. Luke.
40. V. 61. "Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child, Warble his native woodnotes wild." Milton, L'Alleg. 138. W. Hor. Od. iv. ii. 12, "Numerisque fertur lege solutis,"
41. V. 62. "Girt with feather'd cincture." Par. L. ix. 1116.
42. V. 62. "Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves." Pope, Winds. For, 410. Gray's epithet, as Dr. Warton remarks, is the more correct. He has used it again; "The dusky people drive before the gale," Frag, on Educ. and Gover. v. 105.
43. V. 64. This use of the verb plural, after the first substantive is in Pindar's manner, Nem. x. 91. Pyth. 4. 318. lom. 11. E. 774. W. "I cannot help remarking (says Dugald Stewart, Philos. of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 505, 8vo.) the effect of the solemn and uniform flow of verse in this exquisite stanza, in retarding the pronunciation of the reader, so as to arrest his attention to every successive pictute, till it bas time to produce its proper impression."
44. V. 65. Akens. Pl. of Im. i. 468 Love's holy flame." Luke. "The unconquerable mind," is in Hor. Od. ii. 1. 22. "Et cuncta terrarum subacta, præter atrocem animum Catonis."
45. V. 66. Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there. Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since. Gray.
    With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving."
    Milton. Hymn to Nativ, xix W
    
    
    .
46. V. 118. See the observation of D. Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind, p. 486: "that Gray, in describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed with exquisite judgement on that class of our conceptions which are derived from visible objects." And see also his Philosophical Essays, p. 231. There is a passage in Sir W. Temple. Essay on Poetry, vol. iii. p. 402, which has been supposed to have been the origin of this passage. See Gentleman's Mag. vol. lxi. p. 91.
47. V. 117. Eurip. Med. 1294: ie allepog Báboç. "Cœli fretam," Ennius apud Non Marcell, 3. 92. Lucret. ii. 151. v. 277: "Aeris in magnum fertur mare." W. Oppian, Κυνηγ. iii, 497:

    Μέρος ὑψιπόροισιν ἐπιπλωούσι κελεύθοις.

    Timon of Athens, act iv. sc. 2. p. 126. ed. Steevens: "Into this sea of air." And Cowley's Poems: "Row thro' the trackless ocean of the air."

48. V. 120. Spenser. Hymn: "With much more orient hew." Milt. Par. L. i. 545: "with orient colours." Luke.
49. V. 123. "Still show how much the good outshone the great." K. Philips, fol. p. 133.
    "I have sometimes thought (says Prof. D. Stewart) that in the last line of the following passage, Gray had in view the two different effects of words already described; the effect of some, in awakening the powers of conception and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions,
    "Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
    Bright-eyed Fancy, hov'ring o'er,
    Scatters from her pictur'd urn
    Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."
    
    
    V. Elem. of the Phil. of the H. Mind, vol. i. p. 507.

---

Footnotes to footnotes

1. Shakespeare has, "Make boot upon the summer's velve buds," Hen, V. act i. sc 2.
2. The old English Poets (as Jortin remarks) did not regard quantity. Spenser has Iole, Pylades, Caphǎreus, Rbatean, Amphion. Gascoyne in his "Ultimum Vale:"

1. This note was occasioned by a strange mistake of the Critical Reviewers, who supposed the Ode addressed to the "Harp of Æolus." See Mason. Memoirs, let. 26. sec. 4.; and Crit. Rev. vol. iv. p. 167. And the Literary Magaz. 1757, p. 422; at p. 466 of the same work, is an Ode to Gray on his Pindaric Odes.
2. "Kinde Erato, and wanton Thalia." Turberville in the "Ventrous Lover," stanz. i: "If so Leander durst, from Abydon to Sest, To swim to Hero, whom he chose his friend above the rest." Lord Sterline in his "Third Hour," st. xiii. p. 50; "Then Pleiades, Arcturus, Orion, all." Id. p. 87: "Which carrying Orion safely to the shore." But Orion has all the syllables doubtful. See Erythræi, Ind. Virg. art. Orion. Chaucer and Surrey have Cithĕron.