'Or can he [Imagination] mix them with that matchless skill, And lay them on so delicately fine, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows?' The construction, though the line be restored, is loose and even slovenly, and the grammar faulty. 482-487. These lines appear in no edition till after 1738. Amanda was a Miss Young, one of the daughters of Captain Gilbert Young, a gentleman belonging to Dumfriesshire. Thomson made her acquaintance, probably at Richmond, about the year 1740, through her brotherin-law, James Robertson, who was then surgeon to the Household at Kew, and with whom Thomson had been in friendly relation so early 1726. Thomson was deeply in love with her. No fewer than seven of his minor poems are addressed to her, and all of them display the sincerity of his passion. A letter of his, directed to Miss Young from Hagley, of date August 29th, 1743, has also been published: it is interesting in many ways: in the course of it he says 'You mix with all my thoughts, even the most studious, and, instead of disturbing, as give them greater harmony and spirit. . . . . You so fill my mind with all ideas of beauty, so satisfy my soul with the purest and most sincere delight, I should feel the want of little else.' Amanda has been described by Robertson as 'a fine, sensible woman'; by Ramsay of Ochtertyre as 'not a striking beauty, but gentle-mannered and elegantminded, worthy the love of a man of taste and virtue.' 'Thomson,' says Robertson, 'was never wealthy enough to marry'; and, says Ramsay (Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, from the Ochtertyre MSS.), 'it was Mrs. Young, a coarse, vulgar woman, who constantly opposed the poet's pretensions to her daughter, saying to her one day, "What! would you marry Thomson? He will make ballads, and you will sing them!" Amanda afterwards became the wife of Admiral Campbell. 484, 485. Come with those downcast eyes sedate... Those looks demure. Cp. 'Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, .... With even step and musing gait, thine eyes. With a sad leaden downward cast.' Il Penseroso, 11. 31-43. 497. In fair profusion decks. climbs,' followed by the following passage Turgent in every pore The gummy moisture shines, new lustre lends, And feeds the Spirit that diffusive round 499. Arabia cannot boast. Cp. Milton 'Sabëan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest.'-Par. Lost, Bk. IV. ll. 162, 163. 501. Breathes through the sense. 505. undisguised by mimic art. Growing wild-having their forms unaltered by domestication. Contrast, for example, the wild daisy with the garden daisy. 512, 513. they soaring dare The purple heath. This is a flight out of Spring into Autumn. 516. its alleys green. I know each lane and every alley green.'— Comus, 1. 311. 517-524. The scene is perhaps laid in Wiltshire (see Introductory Note to Spring). It is characteristic of Thomson's love of uncultivated nature and a wide landscape, that he is no sooner in the flower-garden than his eyes are beyond its enclosing walls, sweeping the distant horizon. Contrast Cowper's love of nature-not less genuine, but quieter and more fastidious. To him a garden was 'a blest seclusion,' and when he walked abroad it was to see 'nature in her cultivated trim.' (See The Task, Bk. III.) His description of an English landscape may be profitably compared with Thomson's : 'Far beyond, and overthwart the stream, That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote.' The Tásk, Bk. I. ll. 169–176. 529. Here begins a poetical catalogue of garden flowers. It is worth noting that Thomson was early familiar with gardens and gardening work. IIis paternal grandfather, at least one uncle-also on the father's side—and some of his cousins, all followed the occupation of a gardener. It was one of those cousins that latterly kept the poet's own garden at Richmond in proper trim.-Crocus, Gr. крóкos, from its saffron colour. Violet, dimin. of Fr. viole, 'a gilliflower '-according to Cotgrave, Gr. čov, a violet. Polyanthus, Gr. Toλú-, many, and aveos, flower. Anemone, lit. wind-flower, from Gr. äveμos, wind. Auricula, lit. the lobe of the ear, used to name the 'bear's ear' flower, a double dimin., from Lat. auris, the ear. Ranunculus, lit. a little frog, a double dimin., from Lat. rana, a frog. tulip, originally from Pers. or Hind. dulband, a turban, through Turk. tulbend, and last from Fr. tulippe or tulipan, a tulip, a turban-like flower (early forms of turban in English are turbant (Par. Regained), tulibant, and tulipant). Hyacinth, Gr. vákɩveos (according to Prof. Skeat, not our hyacinth, but) an iris, larkspur. Jonquil, from Fr. jonquilie, named from its rushlike leaves (Lat. juncus, a rush). Narcissus, Gг. váрêɩσσos, a flower so called from its narcotic property (Gr. vaрkáw, I grow numb). Carnation, named from its flesh colour, Lat. carn- stem of caro, flesh. Pink, named from the peaked edges of the petals. 540. the father-dust. The fertilising pollen. 541. while they break. 'Break' is printed in the early editions in small capitals, as if it were a technical term of gardening. It means 'blossom' or 'burst into colour.' Cp. ' daybreak.' 549. the fabled fountain. For the story of Narcissus, who, falling in love with his own shadow in the water, pined and died on the fountainbrink, see Ovid's Metam. Bk. III. As his own bright image he surveyed He fell in love with the fantastic shade; And o'er the fair resemblance hung unmoved, For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn, Addison's translation. 555-570. It has been remarked that, while Cowper's gloomy views of religion drove him for relief and solace to the study of nature, Thomson's love of nature inspired him with a cheerful religious sentiment and a robust belief in the bounty and benevolence of deity. Here he traces the beauty of vegetable nature to the benevolence of God. In the remaining part of the poem he traces the joy of animal life to the same source. 566-570. These lines furnish an explanatory commentary on lines 78-82 supra. 578. From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings. In the well-known and much-admired Ode to the Cuckoo by Michael Bruce (born 1746) the cuckoo is correctly described as 'attendant on the spring.' 585. the long-forgotten strain. Referring to the silence of the birds during winter. 600. listening Philomela. singer) is mostly silent by day. The nightingale (literally the night 'Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and on But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublim That hails the rising moon, have charms for 1 The Task, Bk. I. 1 The jay is named from its showy plumage (Fr. gai, gay). woods, and seldom flies into the open country. Indeed it though its note-which, when the bird is alarmed, is extre is often enough heard. It is a smaller bird and more p the magpie, and has a much shorter tail, broadening at the jay, however, Thomson probably means the magpie, wh commoner in Scotland, and often called the jay-pyot Summer, 11. 224, 225.-The daw, or jackdaw, is named fi it is a lively and noisy bird, almost impudently familiar. steeples, ruined castles, and such inaccessible places.—Th is the ringdove, or cushat. 624. approvance. Approval. 627. After this line in the earlier editions 'And, throwing out the last efforts of love.' 652. In the earlier editions 'But hurry, hurry through the busy air.' 694. The white-winged plover. See note, line 24 supra. 699. pious fraud! A deceit prompted by their love for t Cp. pius Aeneas. Her brothers of the grove. Se 701, 702. the muse . . . Indolence, Canto II. st. xxxiii : Philomelus-'in russet brown bedight 710. this barbarous act forbear. Cp. Shenstone- I have found where the wood-pigeons breed But let me that plunder forbear, She will say 'twas a barbarous deed.' Pastoral Ballad, Pt. II. (dat 714. Her ruined care. Her young, stolen from the n objects of her defeated care. 719. The pause after the word 'robbed' is peculiarly effect strain suddenly modulates into the minor key. This is a pause of Tennyson's. The picture of Philomela mournin poplar shade for the loss of her young is copied from Virgil's Fourth Georgic. 724. Sole-sitting. Originally sad-sitting.' Wordsworth's use of this compound is well-known— 'Lady of the mere, Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.' Poems on the Naming of Places, IV. at every dying fall. Cp. Shakespeare— 'That strain again! it had a dying fall.' Twelfth Night, Act I. sc. i. 1. 4. 729. weighing their wings. In the sense of balancing themselves. 738. Nature's common. The air. Cp. Burns 'Commoners of air We wander out, we know not where.' Fly. Epistle to Davie. 739. Wing. Construe- Nature's common, the air, their range and pasture as far as they can see or fly.' 752. The acquitted parents. In the first text 'the exonered parents'— a Scotticism for 'exonerated.' 754-764. These lines graphically describe a striking scene. In the original version (scarcely less vigorous, but cancelled, probably because of the somewhat ridiculous image of the last line) the passage stood :-High from the summit of a craggy cliff Hung o'er the green sea, grudging at its base, The royal eagle draws his young, resolved To try them at the sun. Strong-pounced, and bright 765-787. Probably—at least in part-a recollection of Marlborough in Wiltshire. (See Lady Hertford's verses in the Introduction to Spring, supra.) 766-769. Whose lofty elms ... Invite the rook who... ceaseless caws. • The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree.' Tennyson. 779. with oary feet. The expression is Milton's: Par. Lost. Bk. VII. I. 440. 806. balmy breathing near. 'Redolent in view,' in the early editions. Much of this description is copied from the Third Georgic, from 1. 215 onwards. |