"One would have thought 't had heard the morning crow,
Or seen her well-appointed star.
Come marching up the eastern hill afar."
The following variations on 52 and 53 are found in the MS.:
Till fierce Hyperion from afar
Pours on their scatter'd rear, |
Hurls at " flying " | his glittering shafts of war.
" o'er " scatter'd " |
" " " shadowy " |
Till " " " " from far
Hyperion hurls around his, etc.
The accent of _Hyperion_ is properly on the penult, which is long in
quantity, but the English poets, with rare exceptions, have thrown it
back upon the antepenult. It is thus in the six instances in which
Shakes. uses the word: e.g. _Hamlet_, iii. 4: "Hyperion's curls; the
front of Jove himself." The word does not occur in Milton. It is
correctly accented by Drummond (of Hawthornden), _Wand. Muses_:
"That Hyperion far beyond his bed
Doth see our lions ramp, our roses spread;"
by West, _Pindar's Ol._ viii. 22:
"Then Hyperion's son, pure fount of day,
Did to his children the strange tale reveal;"
also by Akenside, and by the author of the old play _Fuimus Troes_
(A.D. 1633):
"Blow, gentle Africus,
Play on our poops when Hyperion's son
Shall couch in west."
Hyperion was a Titan, the father of Helios (the Sun), Selene (the
Moon), and Eos (the Dawn). He was represented with the attributes of
beauty and splendor afterwards ascribed to Apollo. His "glittering
shafts" are of course the sunbeams, the "lucida tela diei" of
Lucretius. Cf. a very beautiful description of the dawn in Lowell's
_Above and Below_:
"'Tis from these heights alone your eyes
The advancing spears of day can see,
Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise,
To break your long captivity."
We may quote also his _Vision of Sir Launfal_:
"It seemed the dark castle had gathered all
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall
In his siege of three hundred summers long," etc.
54. Gray's note here is as follows: "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.]" He also quotes Virgil, _Æn._ vi. 796: "Extra anni solisque
vias," and Petrarch, _Canz._ 2: "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole."
Cf. also Dryden, _Thren. August._ 353: "Out of the solar walk and
Heaven's highway;" _Ann. Mirab._ st. 160: "Beyond the year, and out
of Heaven's highway;" _Brit. Red._: "Beyond the sunny walks and
circling year;" also Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 102: "Far as the solar
walk and milky way."
56. _Twilight gloom_. Wakefield quotes Milton, _Hymn on Nativ._ 188:
"The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."
57. Wakefield says, "It almost chills one to read this verse." The
MS. variations are "buried native's" and "chill abode."