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GRAY'S POEMS.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.[N 1]

[Finished in 1754. Printed together with the Bard, an Ode. Aug. 8, 1757. MS.]

Φωνᾶντα συνετοίσιν ἐς
Δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων
Χατίζει. PINDAR. Of. I. v. 152.

I. 1.
Awake, Æolian lyre, awake,[V 1]
And give to rapture[V 2] all thy trembling strings.


[N 2]

[1]

Variants

  1. ↑ Var. V. 1. "Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake." MS.
  2. ↑ Var. V. 2. Rapture] Transport. MS.

Notes

  1. ↑ When the author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty. Gray.
  2. ↑ V. 1.
    "Awake, my glory: awake, lute and harp."
    David's Psalms. Gray.
    "Awake, awake, my lyre,
    And tell thy silent master's humble tale."
    Cowley. Ode of David, vol. ii. p. 423.

    Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, Αιολίς μολπή, Αιολίδες χορδαί, Αιολίδων προὶ aúλov, Æolian song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute. Gray."
    The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers;
  1. ↑ This note was occasioned by a strange mistake of the Critical Reviewers, who supposed the Ode addressed to the "Harp of Æolus." See Mason. Memoirs, let. 26. sec. 4.; and Crit. Rev. vol. iv. p. 167. And the Literary Magaz. 1757, p. 422; at p. 466 of the same work, is an Ode to Gray on his Pindaric Odes.
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