28. FANCY IN NUBIBUS. Oн, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold, 'Twixt crimson banks; and then a traveller go From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or, listening to the tide with closed sight, Be that blind Bard, who on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. NOTES. No. 3. A VISION UPON THE FAERIE QUEENE. This is the first of the commendatory verses prefixed to the first edition of The Faerie Queene. "Two persons, I have no doubt, were included in the magnificent flattery of this sonnet Queen Elizabeth as well as Spenser; for it was she whom the poet expressly imaged in his Queen of Fairyland; and Sir W. Raleigh was not the man to let the occasion pass for extolling that great woman, their joint mistress. His abolition of Laura, Petrarch, and Homer all in a lump, in honour of his friend Spenser is in the highest style of his wilful and somewhat domineering genius; but everything in the poem is as grandly as it is summarily done." - Leigh Hunt. Q No. 15. TO HIS LUTE. This sonnet was later expanded by Shelley in his beautiful poem entitled To a Lady, with a Guitar (see page 336). ramage. Wood-song. harbinger. Messenger, herald. turtle. Turtle dove. No. 22. SWEET AND BITTER. brere. Briar. eglantine. Hawthorn. moly. A herb with a black root and white blossoms, mentioned in the Odyssey. No. 23. THE NILE. One of the finest of Leigh Hunt's poems. Sisostris. One of the greatest of Egypt's ancient rulers. to the third king of the nineteenth dynasty, 2300 B.C. queen. Cleopatra. A name given The laughing The No. 24. IN SAN LORENZO. Line 1. "O slumbering Night." famous statue of sleeping Night, on the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, by Michael Angelo, in the Medici Chapel of San Lorenzo, Florence. The poet supposes the dawn of Italian liberty to be at hand as indeed it was, when this fine sonnet was written. No. 26. CUPID AND CAMPASPE. and Campaspe, published in 1584. ness and point, of Attic salt and the honey of Hymettus." From the drama entitled Alexander "It is full," says Hazlitt, "of sweet Lyrics of Life. The poet's mission is not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their own nature, and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True poetry is the remembrance of love, the embodiment in words of the happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the greatest deeds of the past.-PROFESSOR JOWETT. I. MAN'S MORTALITY. LIKE as the damask rose you see, Like to the grass that's newly sprung, The swan's near death; man's life is done! SIMON WASTELL. 2. THE LIFE OF MAN. LIKE to the falling of a star, -FRANCIS BEAUMONT. 3. LIFE AND THE FLOWERS. I MADE a posy while the day ran by: But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they My hand was next to them, and then my heart. Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey, Farewell, dear flow'rs! sweetly your time ye spent ; I follow straight, without complaints or grief; It be as short as yours. - GEORGE HERBERT. |