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THE PROGRESS OF POESY.
37
Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear, 115
Sailing with supreme dominion
Thro' the azure deep of air:
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run[V 1][N 1]
Such forms[V 2] as glitter in the Muse's ray,



[N 2]

Variants

  1. ↑ Var. V. 118.
    "Yet when they first were open'd on the day
    Before his visionary eyes would run." MS.
  2. ↑ V. 119. Forms] "shapes." MS.

Notes

    flight, regardless of their noise. Gray. See Spenser, F. Q. V. iv. 42:

    "Like to an eagle in his kingly pride
    Soaring thro' his wide empire of the aire
    To weather his brode sailes."

    Cowley, (i. 166. ed. Hurd.) in his Translation of Hor. Od. IV. ii. calls Pindar "the Theban swan:"
    "Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air
    The Theban swan does upward bear."

    Pope. Temple of Fame, 210, has copied Horace, and yoked four swans to the car of the poet:

    "Four swans sustain a car of silver bright."

    See also Berdmore, Specimens of Lit. Resemblance, p. 102.

  1. ↑ V. 118. See the observation of D. Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind, p. 486: "that Gray, in describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed with exquisite judgement on that class of our conceptions which are derived from visible objects." And see also his Philosophical Essays, p. 231. There is a passage in Sir W. Temple. Essay on Poetry, vol. iii. p. 402, which has been supposed to have been the origin of this passage. See Gentleman's Mag. vol. lxi. p. 91.
  2. ↑ V. 117. Eurip. Med. 1294: ie allepog Báboç. "Cœli fretam," Ennius apud Non Marcell, 3. 92. Lucret. ii. 151. v. 277: "Aeris in magnum fertur mare." W. Oppian, Κυνηγ. iii, 497:

    Μέρος ὑψιπόροισιν ἐπιπλωούσι κελεύθοις.

    Timon of Athens, act iv. sc. 2. p. 126. ed. Steevens: "Into this sea of air." And Cowley's Poems: "Row thro' the trackless ocean of the air."

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