Where, then, ah! where shall poverty reside, If to the city sped]—what waits him there ?| 325 Are these thy serious thoughts -ah, turn thine eyes] 306. He cannot refer to poverty (line 303), for that could not be made masculine. We must therefore refer it to a Noun (poor man), suggested by the Abstract Noun poverty. 308. Reference to the Enclosure Acts, by which numerous bare-worn commons were divided, enclosed, and turned into rich fields, to the great advantage of agriculture and the country in general. The desponding views of the poet do not stand the test of political science. 309. Sped, i.e., having sped. The Past Partic. of Intransitive Verbs are very rarely used without Auxiliary Verbs (see Cowper's Task, i. 4, note). The grammatical construction is incomplete. 310. To see profusion [waits him there]. Supply also the same Pred. in lines 312 and 314. 314. His would read better their 315. Here while are inverted by poetic license. 316. Artist=artisan. Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 330 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn : | Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue, fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, | And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, 335 When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. | Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, Those matted woods) where birds forget to sing, | 350 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; | Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crown'd,) Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. | 335. Idly thoughtlessly. 338. To speak of the fair tribes in addition to the lovely train of a village is indulging too much in the poetical license of painted words. 344. Altama, a river in America. 344. Murmurs to their woe. Compare Cowper, Task iv. 27.-Snore to the murmur of the waves; and Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 537.-Streaming to the wind. See note. 346. Supply" are." 347 to 356. All grammatically dependent on the word terrors. 356. Supply-Still wait their hapless prey, from the former line. Far different these from every former scene, 360 The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, The breezy covert of the warbling grove,] That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love. [Good Heaven!] what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, | That call'd them from their native walks away; | 365 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last,] To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe ;] With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 385 [O Luxury, thou cursed by Heaven's decree,] How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!| How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy !| Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown, 390 Boast of a florid vigour not their own ;| 395 At every draught more large and large they grow, Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, And half the business of destruction done ;] Down) where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail | 400 That idly waiting flaps with every gale, Downward they move, a melancholy band,) And kind connubial Tenderness are there ;| And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, 410 To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame; Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,) 393. Two Nom. Absolutes, forming extensions of manner, to "sink." 406. Supply "are there." 407. This beautiful invocation to Poetry may either be taken as an exclamation standing apart from any grammatical construction, or may be united as a subject to the verb fare thee well in line 416. The thee in fair thee well is really a subject also, though in the form of the objective case. 412. My solitary pride, i.e., my pride in solitude. 418. Torno's cliff: Tornea is a river at the extreme north of the Gulf of Bothnia. Pambamarca's side: A mountain in South America, nearly under the Equator. Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 428. The image would be clearer, if this line were expressed in the passive; for the idea is that "Trade's proud empire must perish as the laboured mole is swept away by the ocean; whilst power, independent of trade, can brave every storm." |