'Yet never day so long but late would passe,
Ring ye the bels to make it weare away.'
A familiar instance of 'speed' as a trans. verb is in Pope's
Odyssey, XV. 83:--'Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.'
Stanza VIII. line 120. St. Valentine's day is Feb. 14, when birds
pair and lovers (till at any rate recent times) exchange artistic
tokens of affection. The latter observance is sadly degenerated. See
Professor Skeat's note to 'Parlement of Foules,' line 309, in
Chaucer's Minor Poems (Clarendon Press).
line 122. The myth of Philomela has been a favourite with English
sentimental poets. The Elizabethan Barnefield writes the typical
lyric on the theme. These lines contain the myth :--
'She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean'd her breast against a thorn,
And there sung the dolefullest ditty
That to hear it was great pity.'
Stanza IX. In days when harvesting was done with the sickle, reapers
from the Highlands and from Ireland came in large numbers to the
Scottish Lowlands and cut the crops. At one time a piper played
characteristic melodies behind the reapers to give them spirit for
their work. Hence comes--
'Wha will gar our shearers shear?
Wha will bind up the brags of weir?'
in a lyric by Hamilton of Gilbertfield (1665-1751). The reaper's
song is the later representative of this practice. See Wordsworth's
'Solitary Highland Reaper'--immortalized by her suggestive and
memorable singing--and compare the pathetic 'Exile's Song' of Robert
Gilfillan (1798-1850):--
'Oh! here no Sabbath bell
Awakes the Sabbath morn;
Nor song of reapers heard
Among the yellow corn.'
For references to Susquehanna and the home-longing of the exile, see
Campbell's 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' I. i.-vi. The introduction of
reaping-machines has minimised the music and poetry of the harvest
field.
Stanzas X, XI. The two pictures in the song are very effectively
contrasted both in spirit and style. The lover's resting-place has
features that recall the house of Morpheus, 'Faery Queene,' I. i.
40-1. Note the recurrence of the traitor's doom in Marmion's
troubled thoughts, in VI. xxxii. The burden 'eleu loro' has been
somewhat uncertainly connected with the Italian ela loro, 'alas! for
them.'
Stanza XIII. lines 201-7. One of the most striking illustrations of
this is in Shakespeare's delineation of Brutus, who is himself made
to say (Julius Caesar, ii. I. 18):--
'The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power.'
For the sentiment of the text cp. the character of Ordonio in
Coleridge's 'Remorse,' the concentrated force of whose dying words
is terrible, while indicative of native nobility:--
'I stood in silence like a slave before her
That I might taste the wormwood and the gall,
And satiate this self-accusing heart
With bitterer agonies than death can give.'
line 211. 'Among other omens to which faithful credit is given among
the Scottish peasantry, is what is called the "dead-bell," explained
by my friend James Hogg to be that tinkling in the ears which the
country people regard as the secret intelligence of some friend's
decease. He tells a story to the purpose in the "Mountain Bard," p.
26 [pp. 31-2, 3rd edit.].'--SCOTT.
Cp. Tickell's 'Lucy and Colin,' and this perfect stanza in Mickle's
'Cumnor Hall,' quoted in Introd. to 'Kenilworth':--
'The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,
An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp'd its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.'
line 217. Cp. Midsummer Night's Dream, v. I. 286: 'The death of a
dear friend would go near to make a man look sad.'
Stanza XIV. lines 230-5. Cp. the effect of Polonius on the King
(Hamlet, iii. I. 50):--
'How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!'