This is the horn, and hound, and horse, The wakeful priest oft drops a tear 205 NOTICES AND NOTES TO PART I. WILLIAM BLAKE. WILLIAM BLAKE, poet, painter, and engraver, was born in London, in 1757, of humble but moderately prosperous parents. From his earliest childhood he was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, which he described in poetry and in pictures with real, though wild and often perplexing, genius. He was at first apprenticed to an engraver, and was employed in making drawings from old monuments in Westminster Abbey and other churches; but later on he availed himself of an opportunity for study at the Royal Academy. In 1789 he published his Songs of Innocence, written, printed, and illustrated by himself, with the assistance of his wife. These, with the Songs of Experience, published five years later, are generally considered his best work in literature. They are full of sweet, childlike beauty, and abound with thoughts and fancies which are simple, and pure, and fresh, and unlike anyone else's. His paintings and illustrations of books are even more strikingly original, and, though often hard to understand, and sometimes ill-drawn, they are always full of power, and imagination, and beauty of colour. The Illustrations to the Book of Job are perhaps the best, as well as the best known, of these. About the year 1800 Blake settled at Felpham, in Sussex, and for some time keenly enjoyed the quiet of country life. Later on he returned to London, and to the end of his days continued seeing visions, dreaming dreams, and producing poems and designs. He died in August 1827. It may be remembered, as a good example of the vigour and freshness of his mind, that at the age of sixty-eight he began to study Dante. A DREAM. The special beauty of this little poem is its perfect simplicity. But, over and above this, it charms us by its exquisite, tender feeling for so small a creature as an ant. No one has ever loved the small things of this earth more truly than Blake did; and but very few have written of them as well as he has. Compare with this, for the idea of a watchful, kind Creator, the closing lines of Hart-Leap Well, and the note thereon. = P. 11, 1. 1. A dream did weave a shade a dream constructed a fancy, or shadowy appearance. P. 11, 1. 4. Methought = me seemed = it seemed to me. Cf. Spenser, Prothalamion, 60, “them seem'd." Thought in this compound is from A.S. thincan, to seem (an impersonal verb), quite distinct from thencan, to think. Me is an indirect object, and = to me. The impersonal use of verbs was very common in the older periods of English. P. 11, 1. 5. Forlorn deserted, solitary. = forloren forlosen = utterly lost, P. 11, 1. 8. Heart-broke. Such forms are common enough in literature before this century. Then or en of the passive participles of strong verbs had, like so many other inflexions, dropped out of use. If the dropping of the inflexion made the participle like the present indicative, then the form of the past tense was used as the passive participle. Cf. "Have you chose this man?" (Coriol. ii. 3, 163); “Where I have took them up (Jul. Caes. ii. 1, 50). We have restored the n or en in a few cases. P. 11, 1. 15. Wight creature, animal, thing. A.S. wiht. Watchman. Watch, wake, and wait are all the same word. The first two from the A.S. wacian, and the third from Old French waiter, modern French guetter, which is the form the word took when adopted by the French. P. 11, 1. 20. Hie thee = hasten thee; a reflexive verb. ALFRED TENNYSON. ALFRED TENNYSON was born at Somerby Vicarage, Lincolnshire, in the year 1809; and, after having been educated by his father, proceeded in due course to Trinity College, Cambridge. With the exception of a volume of poems published in conjunction with his brother Charles, when they were boys, and a prize poem on Timbuctoo, composed whilst an undergraduate at Cambridge, Mr. Tennyson did not publish anything till 1830, when Poems chiefly Lyrical appeared. But from that date the steady and rapid growth of his fame may be easily traced. The two volumes of 1830 were in part a republication, but the most important poems they contained were the new ones. It was at once apparent that the author of Mort d'Arthur, Locksley Hall, The May Queen, and The Two Voices was worthy to take a place in the first rank of English poets; a reputation which was more than sustained by the two works which followed, The Princess and In Memoriam. So well known and popular, indeed, had Mr. Tennyson become, that, on the death of Wordsworth in 1851, it seemed only natural that "the laurel greener from the brows of him who uttered nothing base" should be placed on his head. Since then, down to the present year (1879), numerous volumes, published at short intervals, have enchanted all readers of English, and have proved that the deep interest which the poet takes in all the movements and events of his time has in nowise abated. Besides those already mentioned, the most beautiful and most notable of his poems are The Idylls of the King, founded on the legends of King Arthur; and Maude, a lyrical monologue, or drama with one speaker. As a writer of pure English, and of polished and melodious verse, Mr. Tennyson is without a rival. The subjects of his poems may not be grand, and the music of his words may be rather tender and pure than lofty and vigorous; but the movements and thoughts of his generation have seldom stirred a poet more truly or found a sweeter utterance. The sad unrest of his fellows, and their expectation of greater and still greater wonders, have found no simpler, tenderer, or nobler expression than in his verse; while none has ever taught more wisely, or more clearly, the lessons of "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control." THE SONG OF THE BROOK. To understand this beautiful little poem aright we must remember that it is set in fragments amongst the verses of a longer poem. This longer poem tells of the happy days of childhood and the change that comes over them. Friends die, or are scattered abroad throughout the world, and others fill their places; and when once more we come back to the old haunts everything is changed, except the brooks and fields. They alone seem "to go on for ever"; they alone seem to escape the sorrow of" remembering happier things." But the poem does not end altogether sadly, for by a skilful touch we are shown that the old friendships do not die, and are even handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, and we are made to feel, as the poet says in another poem, that ""Tis better to have loved and lost P. 12, 1. 4. Bicker = to move quickly with a murmuring sound. Literally to make the noise of a rapid succession of strokes. Compare.— "Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, P. 12, 1. 7. Thorp = a small group of houses, a village. Compare the following lines in Burns's Hallowe'en, which have the metre as well as the idea of The Brook : P. 12, 1. 17. 66 Whyles (at times) owre a linn (cascade) the burnie plays, Whyles round a rocky scaur (cliff) it strays; Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle; Whyles cookit (appeared and disappeared) underneath Below the spreading hazel, Unseen that night." = P. 12, 1. 18. Fallow = ploughed land left exposed to the air. It is derived either from Scotch fale = a sod, or A.S. fealo yellowish-red. P. 12, 1. 19. Fairy foreland. A tiny bit of the bank projecting into the brook; as small and as beautiful, with its flowers and grasses, as a foreland in fairyland. P. 12, 1. 31. Silvery water-break. Where the water tumbles over the stones in silvery foam. = P. 13, 1. 37. Lawn any open grassy space. Originally it meant a clear or cleared space amongst trees, where the view is unobstructed. P. 13, 1. 38. Cover the covert or lurking-place of a wild animal; hence a small group of shrubs or brushwood. P. 13, 1. 43. Netted sunbeam. A sunbeam when it falls on broken into bright lines, which cross and relike the threads of a net. moving water is cross one another P. 13, 1. 46. P. 13, 1. 47. Wildernesses = wild, uncultivated places. long mounds of large, loose pebbles. Where they occur in a stream, the water generally spreads out broad and shallow, and has very little current. |