"With haggard eyes the poet stood,
Loose his beard, and hoary hair
_Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air_."
Wakefield quotes _Paradise Lost_, lib. i. 535.:
"The imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd,
Shone _like a meteor streaming to the wind_."
Campbell, in _The Pleasures of Hope_, Part I., _does_ borrow from Milton
in the above passage:
"Where Andes, giant of the western star,
With _meteor standard to the winds unfurl'd_;"
but Gray is alluding to _hair_, and not to a standard; to the original
derivation of the word _comet_ ([Greek: komê]), and possibly to a
different passage in Milton, viz. _Par. Lost_, ii. 706.:
"on the other side,
Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified: and like a _comet_ burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge,
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid _hair_
Shakes pestilence and war."
Or as Virgil before him, _Æneid_, lib. x. 270.:
"_Ardet apex capiti, cristisque a vertici flamma_
Funditur, et vastos umbo vomit aureus ignes:
Non secus, ac liquida si quando nocti _cometæ_
Sanguinei lugubre rubent, aut Sirius ardor," &c.
One of the meanings of [Greek: komê] is "the luminous tail of a comet;"
and Suidas mentions from the LXX, [Greek: kai hesperon ton astera epi
_komês_ autou axeis auton] (Job xxxviii. 32.). See Scott and Liddell's
_Lexicon_ at the words [Greek: Komê], and [Greek: Pôgôn] and [Greek:
Pôgônias], which latter words are used in reference to the _beard_ of a
comet.
Gray must now speak for himself. He says in a note:
"The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael,
representing the Supreme Being in the Vision of Ezekiel. There are
two of these paintings, both believed originals, one at Florence,
the other at Paris."
And Mr. Mason adds, in a note to his edition of Gray, vol. i. p. 75.
Lond. 1807:
"Moses breaking the Tables of the Law, by Parmegiano, was a figure
which Mr. Gray used to say came still nearer to his meaning than
the picture of Raphael."
I cannot help thinking that Cowley too was not forgotten. Speaking of
the angel Gabriel, he says:
"An harmless flaming _meteor_ shone for _haire_,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care."
Indeed, I must give the entire passage, however fantastic or unconnected
with my purpose; for the last four lines, which describe the angel's
_wings_, appear beyond measure dreamy and beautiful:
"When Gabriel (no blest spirit more kind or fair)
Bodies and cloathes himself with thicken'd air,
All like a comely youth in life's fresh bloom;
Rare workmanship, and wrought by heavenly loom!
He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright,
That ere the mid day sun pierc'd through with light:
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,
Wash't from the morning's beauties deepest red.
An harmless flaming meteor shone for haire
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.
He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies,
Where the most sprightly azure pleas'd the eyes.
This he with starry vapours spangles all,
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall.
Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade,
The choicest piece took out, a scarf is made.
_Small streaming clouds he does for wings display_,
_Not virtuous lovers' sighs more soft than they_.
_These he gilds o'er with the sun's richest rays_,
_Caught gliding o'er pure streams on which he plays._"
_Davideis_, lib. ii. ad finem.
Again, in a verse which was inserted in the _Elegy_ as it originally
stood (and the subsequent rejection of which we must ever grieve over,
as it almost surpasses any verse of the entire poem; and besides would
have saved it from the imputation of having been written as a heathen
poet would have written it), the words "sacred calm" occur, which are
not unfrequent in Cowley:
"Hark how the _sacred calm_ that breathes around
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the ground,
A grateful earnest of eternal peace."--
_Gray._
"They came, but a new spirit their hearts possest,
Scattering a _sacred calm_ through every breast."
_Davideis_, lib. i. ad finem.
"All earth-bred fears and sorrows take their flight;
In rushes joy divine, and hope, and rest;
A _sacred calm_ shines through his peaceful breast."
_Davideis_, lib. ii. ad finem.