Tag Archives: spring

Thomas Gray, “Ode on the Spring”

THOMAS GRAY

“Ode on the Spring”

 

Lo! where the rosy-bosom’d hours,
Fair VENUS’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,                                 5
Responsive to the cuckow’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gather’d fragrance fling.                                         10

Where-e’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade;
Where-e’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade;
Beside some water’s rushy brink                                   15
With me the Muse shall sit, and think,
(At ease reclin’d in rustic state),
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!                                                   20

Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how thro’ the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,                                  25
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some shew their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.                                              30

To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay                                             35
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In Fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brush’d by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill’d by Age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.                                              40

Methinks I hear, in voices low,
The sportive kind reply;
Poor Moralist! and what are thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glitt’ring female meets,                               45
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while ‘tis May.                                                    50

NOTES:

2 VENUS Roman goddess of beauty and love (OED).

9 Zephyrs Personified west wind (OED).

14 O’er-canopies the glade “A bank/O’er-canopied with luscious woodbine. Shakesp[eare] Mids[ummer] Night’s Dream” [Author’s Note]. Act II, scene 1, ll. 257, 259.

16 Muse “Patron goddesses of poets” (Britannica).

27 And float amid the liquid noon “Nare per aestatem liquidam—/Virgil. Georg[ics]. lib [Book] 4” [Author’s Note]. Line 59: “beholdest their army floating on high,/And the marvelous dusky cloud trailed down the wind afar” (Arthur Way, The Georgics of Virgil in English Verse, p. 91.)

30 Quick-glancing to the sun “sporting with quick glance,/Shew to the sun their wav’d coats dropt with gold. Milton’s Paradise Lost, book 7” [Author’s note]. Lines 405-06.

31 To Contemplation’s sober eye “While insects from threshold preach, &c./M[atthew] Green, in the Grotto./Dodsley’s Miscellenies, Vol. 5, p. 161” [Author’s Note].  Gray’s poem was first published in Robert Dodsley’s A Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1748).

37 Fortune “Chance, hap, or luck, regarded as a cause of events and changes in men’s affairs. Often…personified as a goddess” (OED).

38 Mischance “Bad luck; ill fortune” (OED).

SOURCE: Poems by Mr. Gray. A New Edition (London, 1778), pp. 43-47. [Google Books]

Edited by Katherine Szarata

Henry James Pye, “The Snow-Drop”

HENRY JAMES PYE

“The Snow-Drop”

 

Hail earliest of the opening flowers!
Fair Harbinger of vernal hours!
Who dar’st unveil each silken fold
Ere SOL dispels the wintry cold,
And with thy silver leaves display’d                                                   5
Spread lustre through the dreary glade.­—-
What though no fragrance like the rose
Tincturing the ZEPHYR as it blows,
Thy humble flowers from earth exhale
To scent the pinions of the gale;                                                        10
What though no hues of gaudy dye
Strike with their dazzling charms the eye,
Nor does thy sober foliage shew
Each blended tint of IRIS’ bow;
Yet in thy meek unsullied grace                                                          15
Imagination’s eye shall trace
The glowing blossoms that appear
Proudly to paint the vernal year,
And smiling MAIA’s blushing dyes,
And jocund Summer’s cloudless skies,                                              20
And Autumn’s labors which succeed
To bid the purple vintage bleed,
Our hopes anticipating see
Led on in radiant train by thee.

NOTES:

3 dar’st Dares.

4 Ere Before; SOL Sun.

8 Tincturing “Tinge; imbue” (OED); ZEPHYR In Greek Mythology, “the god of the west wind” (OED).

10 pinions Wings (OED).

14 IRIS’ bow “In Greek mythology, the personification of the rainbow” (Britannica).

19 MAIA “In Roman Mythology, a goddess of fertility and of the Spring” (OED).

SOURCE: Poems on Various Subjects. Vol. I (London, 1787), pp. 39-40. [Google Books]

 Edited by Jiyun An

Anonymous, “Ode on the month of May, after the manner of Hagedorn”

ANONYMOUS

“ODE on the month of MAY, after the manner of HAGEDORN, Book III. p. 146”

“Der nachtigall reitzende lieder”

 THY notes, sweet bird, resounding thro’ the grove,
Proclaim the joyful hours of spring and love.
The lark ascending hails the new-born day,
The feather’d choir now join in vocal lay,
To celebrate great Nature’s holiday;                                                                         5
The swan majestic, with her downy throng,
Now seek the clear translucent wave that flows the woods among.

In pleasant green the earth, with flowers attri’d
Calls forth the nymphs and swains by love inspir’d;
To share the pleasures bounteous Nature yields,                                                  10
The merry sparrow ranges thro’ the fields;
In gentle strains the soft lamenting dove
Bemoans the absence of his wedded love.
From forth his orient bed, in splendour bright,
The God of Day pursues the shades of night;                                                         15
Driving far off each noxious influence:
Prolific beam! thy genial powers dispense,
That every flower, enliven’d by thy ray,
May spread their glories to the face of day.

Mild Zephyr, long estrang’d from Flora’s bed,                                                         20
Impatient seeks the variegated maid,
And wooes her mid enamell’d shades and bowers,
Fost’ring their offspring bright of new-born flowers;
Their odours shed a grateful scent around,
Nor e’er did jealousy their loves confound.                                                             25

Winter’s cold haggard form now disappears,
In foliage green each tree new livery wears,
And every flower awaken’d rears its head;
The gaudy may-bush, flutt’ring in the shade,
Boasts that this month for her alone was made.                                                   30
From rocks stupendous living water flow,
Refreshing thirsty glades, and fields, and woods below.
To thee, fair month, I consecrate the verse,
Pleas’d while thy bounteous gift I thus rehearse;
And ye, thrice happy swains, who now enjoy                                                         35
These temperate blessings with no mix’d alloy,
In you the simple and serene we own,
And learn to fly the vices of the Town!

NOTES:

 Title The subtitle alludes to Friedrich Von Hagedorn (1708-1754), a famous German poet. This poem is modeled after his poem titled “Der Mai” found in the book Oden und Lieder, 3 vol. (1742–52; “Odes and Songs”). This poem begins with the line “Der nachtigall reitzende lieder” which translates as “the nightingale singing softly” (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

5 Nature’s holiday Springtime.

15 God of Day The sun.

9 Nymphs “Any of a class of semi-divine spirits, imagined as taking the form of a maiden inhabiting the sea, rivers, mountains, woods, trees, etc., and often portrayed in poetry as attendants on a particular god” (OED).

20 Zephyr, long estrang’d from Flora’s bed Zephyr is a Greek god of the west wind who is married to Flora. She is a nymph to spring time and flowers. He is the messenger of spring.

29 may-bush “The hawthorn tree, Crataegus monogyna; a branch of this. Also: a construction of hawthorn branches” (OED).

33 consecrate “Dedicated to a sacred purpose; made sacred; hallowed, sanctified” (OED).

36 alloy  “To qualify or diminish (a pleasure, feeling, etc.) by the admixture of something unpleasant; to contaminate or adulterate” (OED).

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine (May, 1786), p. 428.

 Edited by Lauren Page