"O magnum Isacidum decus! O pulcherrima castra!
O arma ingentes olim paritura triumphos!
Non sic herbarum vario subridet Amictu,
Planities pictæ vallis, montisque supini
Clivus, perpetuis Cedrorum versibus altus.
Non sic æstivo quondam nitet hortus in anno,
Frondusque, fructusque ferens, formosa secundum
Flumina, mollis ubi viridisque supernatat umbra."
Cowley, _Davideidos_ lib. i. ad finem.
I do not mean that Gray may not have had other poets in his mind when
writing these lines (for there is nothing new or uncommon about them);
but rather a careful going over of Cowley's poems convinces me that Gray
was sensible of his "merits," and often corrects his want of "judgment"
by his own refined and most exquisite taste. I must give one more
instance; and I think that Bishop Hall's allusion to his life at
Emmanuel College, and Bishop Ridley's "Farewell to Pembroke Hall," must
every one fall into the background before Cowley. Gray's poem ought to
be too well known to require quoting:
"Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver winding way.
"Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain.
I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring."