Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; To live beneath your more habitual sway; I love the brooks which down their channels fret The clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; CCLXXXVIII MUSIC, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone, P. B. Shelley NOTES Summary of Book First HE Elizabethan Poetry, as it is rather vaguely termed, forms ΤΗ the substance of this Book, which contains pieces from Wyat under Henry VIII to Shakespeare midway through the reign of James I, and Drummond who carried on the early manner to a still later period. There is here a wide range of style ;from simplicity expressed in a language hardly yet broken in to verse, through the pastoral fancies and Italian conceits of the strictly Elizabethan time, -to the passionate reality of Shakespeare yet a general uniformity of tone prevails. Few readers can fail to observe the natural sweetness of the verse, the single-hearted straightforwardness of the thoughts: - nor less, the limitation of subject to the many phases of one passion, which then characterized our lyrical poetry,— unless when, as with Drummond and Shakespeare, the 'purple light of Love' is tempered by a spirit of sterner reflection. It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has not been aimed at. Great Excellence, in human art as in human character, has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than Mediocrity, by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature: --and so far as the standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout something neither modern nor ancient, but true in all ages, and like the works of Creation, perfect as on the first day. Page No. 2 II 3 4 8 Rouse Memnon's mother: Awaken the Dawn from the dark Earth and the clouds where she is resting. Aurora in the old mythology is mother of Memnon (the East), and wife of Tithonus (the appearances of Earth and Sky during the last hours of Night). She leaves him every morning in renewed youth, to prepare the way for Phoebus (the Sun), whilst Tithonus remains in perpetual old age and grayness. 1. 27 by Peneus' stream: Phoebus loved the Nymph Daphne, whom he met by the river Peneus in the vale of Tempe. This legend expressed the attachment of the Laurel (Daphne) to the Sun, under whose heat the tree both fades and flourishes. It has been thought worth while to explain these allusions, because they illustrate the character of the Grecian Mythology, which arose in the Personification of natural phenomena, and was totally free from those debasing and ludicrous ideas with which, through Roman and later misunderstanding or perversion, it has been associated. II 1.1 Amphion's lyre: He was said to have built the walls of Thebes to the sound of his music. IV 1. 9 Night like a drunkard reels: Compare Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene 3: 'The gray-eyed morn smiles' &c. It should be added, that three lines, which appeared hopelessly misprinted, have been omitted in this Poem. Time's chest: in which he is figuratively supposed to A fine example of the highwrought and conventional IX This Poem, with xxv and XCIV, is taken from Davison's Page No. 'Euganean Hills' within the limits of lyrical unity, is commended with much diffidence to the judgment of readers acquainted with the original pieces. Presence in line 12 is here conjecturally printed for present. A very few similar corrections of (it is presumed) misprints have been made :-as thy for my, XXII, 9: men for me, XLI, 3: viol for idol, CCLII, 43: and one for our, 90: locks for looks, CCLXXI, 5: dome for doom, CCLXXV, 23:- with two or three more less important. xv This charming little poem, truly 'old and plain, and dallying with the innocence of love' like that spoken of in Twelfth Night, is taken, with v, xVII, XX, XXXIV, and XL, from the most characteristic collection of Elizabeth's reign, 'England's Helicon,' first published in 1600. XVI Readers who have visited Italy will be reminded of that fair thou owest: that beauty thou ownest. expense: waste. Nativity once in the main of light: when a star has risen and entered on the full stream of light; -an |