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Stanzas to Mr Bentley
1 In silent gaze the tuneful choir among,
2 Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire,
3 While Bentley leads her sister-art along,
4 And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.
5 See, in their course, each transitory thought
6 Fixed by his touch a lasting essence take;
7 Each dream, in fancy's airy colouring wrought,
8 To local symmetry and life awake!
9 The tardy rhymes that used to linger on,
10 To censure cold and negligent of fame,
11 In swifter measures animated run,
12 And catch a lustre from his genuine flame.
13 Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace,
14 His quick creation, his unerring line;
15 The energy of Pope they might efface,
16 And Dryden's harmony submit to mine.
17 But not to one in this benighted age
18 Is that diviner inspiration given,
19 That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page,
20 The pomp and prodigality of heaven.
21 As when, conspiring in the diamond's blaze,
22 The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight,
23 Together dart their intermingled rays,
24 And dazzle with a luxury of light.
25 Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
26 My lines a secret sympathy [...]
27 And as their pleasing influence [...]
28 A sigh of soft reflection [...].
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 Spoken by the Ghost of John Dennis at the Devil Tavern] ()
- [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] ()
- [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 ()