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[Lines Spoken by the Ghost of John Dennis at the Devil Tavern]
1 From purling streams and the Elysian scene,
2 From groves that smile with never-fading green,
3 I reascend: in Atropos' despite
4 Restored to Celadon and upper light.
5 Ye gods, that sway the regions under ground,
6 Reveal to mortal view your realms profound;
7 At his command admit the eye of day:
8 When Celadon commands, what god can disobey?
9 Nor seeks he your Tartarean fires to know,
10 The house of torture and the abyss of woe;
11 But happy fields and mansions free from pain,
12 Gay meads and springing flowers, best please the gentle swain.
13 That little, naked, melancholy thing,
14 My soul, when first she tried her flight to wing,
15 Began with speed new regions to explore,
16 And blundered through a narrow postern door.
17 First most devoutly having said its prayers,
18 It tumbled down a thousand pair of stairs,
19 Through entries long, through cellars vast and deep,
20 Where ghostly rats their habitations keep,
21 Where spiders spread their webs and owlish goblins sleep.
22 After so many chances had befell,
23 It came into a mead of asphodel:
24 Betwixt the confines of the light and dark
25 It lies, of 'Lysium the St. James's Park.
26 Here spirit-beaux flutter along the Mall,
27 And shadows in disguise skate o'er the iced Canal;
28 Here groves embowered and more sequestered shades,
29 Frequented by the ghosts of ancient maids,
30 Are seen to rise. The melancholy scene,
31 With gloomy haunts and twilight walks between,
32 Conceals the wayward band: here spend their time
33 Greensickness girls that died in youthful prime,
34 Virgins forlorn, all dressed in willow-green-i,
35 With Queen Elizabeth and Nicolini.
36 More to reveal, or many words to use,
37 Would tire alike your patience and my muse.
38 Believe that never was so faithful found
39 Queen Proserpine to Pluto under ground,
40 Or Cleopatra to her Mark Antony,
41 As Orozmades to his Celadony.
42 P.S. Lucrece for half a crown will show you fun,
43 But Mrs. Oldfield is become a nun.
44 Nobles and cits, Prince Pluto and his spouse,
45 Flock to the ghost of Covent-Garden House:
46 Plays, which were hissed above, below revive,
47 When dead applauded that were damned alive.
48 The people, as in life, still keep their passions,
49 But differ something from the world in fashions.
50 Queen Artemisia breakfasts on bohea,
51 And Alexander wears a ramilie.
Source edition
Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771. Thomas Gray: English poems. Web. Oxford: Thomas Gray Archive, 2002. http://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems.shtml
Editorial principles
Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.
Other works by Thomas Gray
- Agrippina, a Tragedy ()
- The Alliance of Education and Government. A Fragment ()
- The Candidate ()
- [Caradoc] ()
- The Characters of the Christ-Cross Row, By a Critic, To Mrs — ()
- [Conan] ()
- [Couplet about Birds] ()
- The Death of Hoel From Aneurin, Monarch of the Bards, extracted from the Gododin ()
- THE DESCENT OF ODIN: AN ODE. (); The Descent of Odin. An Ode (From the Norse-Tongue,) in Bartholinus, de causis contemnendae mortis; Hafniae, 1689, Quarto. Upreis Odinn allda gautr, &c. ()
- An ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH YARD. (); Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ()
- [Epitaph on a Child] ()
- [Epitaph on Mrs Clerke] ()
- [Epitaph on Mrs Mason] ()
- [Epitaph on Sir William Williams] ()
- THE FATAL SISTERS: AN ODE. (); The Fatal Sisters. An Ode (From the Norse-Tongue,) in the ORCADES of Thormodus Torfaeus; Hafniae, 1697, Folio: and also in Bartholinus. Vitt er orpit fyrir valfalli, &c. ()
- HYMN to ADVERSITY. (); Ode to Adversity ()
- [Hymn to Ignorance. A Fragment] ()
- Imitated from Propertius, Lib: 3: Eleg: 5: ()
- [Imitated] From Propertius. Lib: 2: Eleg: 1. ()
- [Impromptus] ()
- [Invitation to Mason] ()
- [Lines on Dr Robert Smith] ()
- Lines on the Accession of George III ()
- [Lines Written at Burnham] ()
- A Long Story ()
- ODE AT THE INSTALLATION OF HIS GRACE AUGUSTUS HENRY FITZROY, DUKE OF GRAFTON, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY. JULY 1, MDCCLXIX. (); Ode for Music ()
- An ODE On a distant Prospect of ETON COLLEGE. (); Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College ()
- ODE on the Death of a Favourite CAT, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes. (); Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes ()
- [Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude] ()
- ODE. (); Ode on the Spring ()
- ODE. (); The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode ()
- ODE. (); The Bard. A Pindaric Ode ()
- On L[or]d H[olland']s Seat near M[argat]e, K[en]t ()
- [Parody on an Epitaph] ()
- Satire on the Heads of Houses; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring ()
- [Sketch of his Own Character] ()
- Song I ()
- Song II ()
- Sonnet [on the Death of Mr Richard West] ()
- Stanzas to Mr Bentley ()
- [Tophet] Inscription on a Portrait ()
- [Translation from Dante, Inferno Canto xxxiii 1-78] ()
- [Translation from Statius, Thebaid VI 646-88, 704-24] ()
- [Translation from Statius, Thebaid IX 319-26] ()
- [Translation] From Tasso [Gerusalemme Liberata] Canto 14, Stanza 32-9 ()
- THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN: A FRAGMENT. (); The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment from Mr. Evans's Specimens of the Welch Poetry; London, 1764, Quarto. ()
- [Verse Fragments] ()
- William Shakespeare to Mrs Anne, Regular Servant to the Revd Mr Precentor of York ()