"On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet _stood_,
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air),
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre."
Ordinary readers would have innocently supposed the above "pictured"
passage beyond all praise or criticism. "At non infelix" Wakefield:
"A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd."
_Macbeth._
I must give his note as it stands, for I question whether the whole
range of verbal criticism could produce anything more ludicrous:
"I wish Mr. Gray could have introduced a more poetical expression,
than the inactive term _stood_, into this fine passage: as
Shakspeare has, for instance, in his description of _Dover cliff_:
'Half way down
_Hangs_ one, that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!'
_King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 6.
"Which is the same happy picture as that of Virgil:
"'Dumosa _pendere_ procul de rupe videbo.'
_Ecl._ I. 77."
He might, when his hand was in, have adduced other passages also from
Virgil, _e.g._:
"Imminet in rivi praestantis imaginis undam."
_Culex_, 66.
However, with all due respect for Mr. Wakefield's "happy pictures," I do
not see anything left, but his eyebrows, for the luckless bard to _hang
by_! He could not have _hung_ by his _hair_, which "stream'd like a
meteor to the troubled air;" nor yet by his _hands_, which "swept the
deep sorrows of his lyre." Besides, there can scarcely be more opposite
pictures than that of a man gathering samphire, or kids browsing,
amongst beetling rocks; and the commanding and awe-inspiring position in
which Gray ingeniously places his bard. The expressions chosen by
Virgil, Shakspeare, and Gray were each peculiarly suitable to the
particular objects in view. If Gray was thinking of Milton, as I
intimated in a former letter, he may have still kept him in mind:
"Incens'd with indignation, Satan _stood_
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the Arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war."
_Par. Lost_, lib. ii. 706.
Or again:
"On th' other side, Satan, alarm'd,
_Collecting all his might dilated stood_,
Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd:
His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest
Sat Horror plum'd; nor wanted in his grasp
What seem'd both spear and shield."
_Par. Lost_, lib. iv. 985.
It would be easy to adduce similar instances from the ancient sources,
but I will only mention from Milton an illustration of the [Greek:
systrepsas] of Demosthenes, and of the passionate abruptness with which
Gray commences "The Bard:"
"As when of old some orator renown'd
In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence
Flourish'd, since mute, to some great cause addressed
_Stood in himself collected_, while each part,
Motion, each act won audience ere the tongue,
_Sometimes in height began, as no delay
Of preface brooking through his zeal of right_."
_Par. Lost_, lib. ix. 670.
Wakefield's hypercritical fastidiousness would have completely defeated
the intentions of Gray. His "Bard" had a mission to fulfil which could
not have been fulfilled by one suspended like king Solomon, in the
ancient Jewish traditions, or like Mahomet's coffin, mid-way between
heaven and earth. His cry was [Greek: dos pou sto], and the poet heard
him. And thus, from his majestic position, was not--
"Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage and full of grief?"
In the full blaze of poetic phrensy, he flashes out at once with the
awfully grand and terrible exordium:
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears."
Collins thus describes the passion of _anger_:
"Next Anger rush'd;--his eyes on fire,
In lightnings own'd his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with flurried hand the strings."
Word-painting can go no farther. When, however, he comes to
_melancholy_, in lines which contain more suggestive beauty, as well as
more poetic _inspiration_, than perhaps any others of the same length
in the English language, how does he sing?
"With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy _sate_ retired;
And, from her wild sequester'd seat,
In notes, by distance made more sweet,
Pour'd thro' the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And, dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away."
_Ode on the Passions._
This is the concentrated essence of poetry. Surely Gray had _forgotten_
Collins when he penned the beautiful lines:
"But not to one in this benighted age,
Is that diviner inspiration given,
That burns in Shakspeare's or in Milton's page,
The pomp and prodigality of heaven,
As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze,
The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight,
Together dart their intermingled rays,
And dazzle with a luxury of light."
_Stanzas to Mr. Bentley._
From a memorandum made by Gray himself, it is evident that he once had
contemplated placing his "Bard" in a _sitting_ posture; but I cannot but
rejoice that he altered his mind, for such breath-taking words could
never have been uttered in so composed and contented a posture. I give
part of it from Mr. Mason's edition:
"The army of Edward I., as they marched through a deep valley, are
suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure, _seated_
on the summit of an inaccessible rock; who, with a voice more than
human, reproaches the king with all the misery and desolation he
had brought on his country, &c., &c. His song ended, he
precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the
river that rolls at its foot."--Vol. i. p. 73. Lond. 1807.