ODES. ON THE SPRING. [The title originally given by Mr. Gray to this Ode was "Noontide."] Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours, Fair VENUS' train, appear, And wake the purple year! The untaught harmony of Spring: Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade, Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think How indigent the Great! [1]* (a) O'er-canopies the glade. a bank O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine. *The Notes referred to by Italic letters between parentheses (a) (b) &c. are Mr. Gray's. Those referred to by Figures between brackets [1] [2] &c. are chiefly drawn from the Criticisms and Commentaries of Dr. Johnson, Mr. Mason, Mr. Scott, of Amwell, and various anonymous writers. Among them are occasionally interspersed a few remarks by the Editor; but these are not thought of importance enough to be distinguished, [1] Variation: How low, how indigent the Proud; How little are the Great. Thus it stood in Dodsley's Miscellany, wherein it was first published. The author corrected it on account of the point of little and great. It certainly had too much the appearance of a Concetto, though it expressed his meaning better than the present reading. Still is the toiling hand of Care; Yet hark, how thro' the peopled air The insect youth are on the wing, And float amid the liquid noon: (b) To Contemplation's sober eye (d) And they that creep, and they that fly, (b) And float amid the liquid noon. Nare per æstatem liquidam Virgil Georg. lib. 4. (c) 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. (d) To Contemplation's sober eye. While insects from the threshold preach, &c. M. Green, in the Grotto. Dodsley's Miscellanies, Vol. 5. p. 161. |