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[XIV]        All he had lov’d, and moulded into thought,        From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,        Lamented Adonais. Morning sought        Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,        Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,        Dimm’d the aëreal eyes that kindle day;        Afar the melancholy thunder moan’d,        Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. XV        Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,        And feeds her grief with his remember’d lay,        And will no more reply to winds or fountains,        Or amorous birds perch’d on the young green spray,        Or herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day;        Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear        Than those for whose disdain she pin’d away        Into a shadow of all sounds: a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. XIV All he had lov’d = তিনি যা কিছু ভালোবেসেছিলেনand moulded into thought = এবং চিন্তার রূপ দিয়েছিলেনFrom shape = রূপ থেকেand hue = এবং রং থেকেand odour = এবং সুগন্ধ থেকেand sweet sound = এবং মধুর সুর থেকেLamented Adonais = সবই অ্যাডোনাইসের জন্য শোক করলMorning sought = সকাল এগিয়ে এলোHer eastern watch-tower = তার পূর্ব দিগন্তের প্রহরী মিনারেand her hair unbound = এবং তার খোলা কেশরাশিWet with the tears = অশ্রুতে ভেজাwhich should adorn = যা সাজিয়ে তোলার কথা ছিলthe ground = পৃথিবীকেDimm’d = ম্লান করে দিলthe aëreal eyes = আকাশের চোখগুলোকেthat kindle day = যা দিনের আলো জ্বালায়Afar = দূরেthe melancholy thunder = বিষণ্ন বজ্রধ্বনিmoan’d = করুণ সুরে গর্জে উঠলPale Ocean = ফ্যাকাশে সমুদ্রin unquiet slumber = অশান্ত নিদ্রায়lay = শুয়ে ছিলAnd the wild Winds = এবং বুনো বাতাসগুলোflew round = চারদিকে উড়ে বেড়ালsobbing = ফুঁপিয়ে কাঁদতে কাঁদতেin their dismay. = তাদের গভীর শোকে। XV Lost Echo = হারিয়ে যাওয়া প্রতিধ্বনিsits = বসে আছেamid = মাঝেthe voiceless mountains = নীরব পাহাড়গুলোরAnd feeds = এবং পুষ্ট করেher grief = তার শোককেwith his remember’d lay = তার স্মরণীয় গানের মাধ্যমেAnd will no more reply = এবং আর কোনো উত্তর দেবে নাto winds = বাতাসকেor fountains = কিংবা ঝরনাগুলোকেOr amorous birds = অথবা প্রেমময় পাখিদেরperch’d = বসে থাকাon the young green spray = সবুজ কচি ডালেOr herdsman’s horn = কিংবা রাখালের শিঙাকেor bell = অথবা ঘণ্টাকেat closing day = দিনের শেষেSince = কারণshe can mimic not = সে আর অনুকরণ করতে পারে নাhis lips = তার কণ্ঠস্বরকেmore dear = যা ছিল আরও প্রিয়Than those = তাদের চেয়েওfor whose disdain = যাদের অবহেলার জন্যshe pin’d away = সে কষ্টে শুকিয়ে গিয়েছিলInto a shadow = এক ছায়ায়of all sounds = সব শব্দের drear Murmur = এক বিষণ্ন গুঞ্জনbetween their songs = তাদের গানের ফাঁকেis all = এটাই কেবলthe woodmen hear. = বনবাসীরা শুনতে পায়। XVI        Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down        Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,        Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,        For whom should she have wak’d the sullen year?        To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear        Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both        Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere        Amid the faint companions of their youth, With dew all turn’d to tears; odour, to sighing ruth. XVII        Thy spirit’s sister, the lorn nightingale        Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;        Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale        Heaven, and could nourish in the sun’s domain        Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,        Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,        As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain        Light on his head who pierc’d thy innocent breast, And scar’d the angel soul that was its earthly guest! XVI Grief = শোকmade = করে তুলল the young Spring = তরুণ বসন্তকেwild = উন্মত্তand she threw down = এবং সে ঝরিয়ে দিলHer kindling buds = তার ফোটা কুঁড়িগুলোas if = যেনshe Autumn were = সে শরৎ ঋতুOr = অথবাthey dead leaves = সেগুলো মৃত পাতাsince = যেহেতুher delight = তার আনন্দis flown = হারিয়ে গেছেFor whom = যার জন্যshould she have wak’d = সে কেন জাগিয়ে তুলবেthe sullen year = বিষণ্ন বছরকেTo Phoebus = ফিবাসের কাছেwas not = ছিল নাHyacinth = হায়াসিন্থso dear = এত প্রিয়Nor = কিংবাto himself = নিজের কাছেওNarcissus = নার্সিসাসas to both = যতটা উভয়ের কাছেইThou, Adonais = তুমি ছিলে, অ্যাডোনাইসwan they stand = তারা ফ্যাকাশে হয়ে দাঁড়িয়ে আছেand sere = এবং শুকিয়ে গেছেAmid = মাঝেthe faint companions = বিবর্ণ সঙ্গীদেরof their youth = তাদের যৌবনেWith dew = শিশিরসহall turn’d to tears = যা সবই অশ্রুতে পরিণত হয়েছেodour = সুগন্ধ to sighing ruth. = দীর্ঘশ্বাসভরা দুঃখে পরিণত হয়েছে। XVII Thy spirit’s sister = তোমার আত্মার বোনthe lorn nightingale = বিষণ্ন বুলবুলি পাখিMourns not = শোক করে নাher mate = তার সঙ্গীকেwith such melodious pain = এমন সুরেলা বেদনায়Not so = তেমনি নয়the eagle = ঈগলwho like thee = যে তোমার মতোcould scale = পৌঁছাতে পারতHeaven = আকাশেand could nourish = এবং লালন করতে পারতin the sun’s domain = সূর্যের রাজ্যেHer mighty youth = তার শক্তিশালী যৌবনকেwith morning = সকালের আলোয়doth complain = তেমন বিলাপ করেSoaring = উঁচুতে উড়েand screaming = এবং আর্তনাদ করেround her empty nest = তার খালি বাসার চারপাশেAs Albion = যেমন ইংল্যান্ডwails for thee = তোমার জন্য বিলাপ করছেthe curse of Cain = কাইনের অভিশাপLight on his head = নেমে আসুক তার মাথায়who pierc’d = যে বিদ্ধ করেছিলthy innocent breast = তোমার নিষ্পাপ বক্ষAnd scar’d = এবং ভয় পাইয়ে দিয়েছিলthe angel soul = দেবদূতের মতো আত্মাকেthat was = যা ছিলits earthly guest! = তার পার্থিব অতিথি। XVIII        Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,        But grief returns with the revolving year;        The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;        The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;        Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons’ bier;        The amorous birds now pair in every brake,        And build their mossy homes in field and brere;        And the green lizard, and

samuel johnson To the subject, thus originally indisposed to the reception of poetical embellishments, the writer brought little that could reconcile impa-tience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be more disgusting than a narrative spangled with conceits, and conceits are all that the ‘Davideis’ supplies. One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, or the power of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferences instead of images, and shews not what may be supposed to have been seen, but what thoughts the sight might have suggested. When Virgil describes the stone which Turnus lifted against Aeneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight: 1710 Saxum circumspicit ingens, Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis”. Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother, I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant At once his murther and his monument. Of the sword taken from Goliah, he says, A sword so great, that it was only fit To take off his great head that came with it.SAMUEL JOHNSON Other poets describe death by some of its com-mon appearances; Cowley says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps, real or fabulous, ‘Twixt his right ribs deep pierc’d the furious blade, And open’d wide those secret vessels where Life’s light goes out, when first they let in air. But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned. In a visionary succession of kings: 1730 Joas at first does bright and glorious show, In life’s fresh morn his fame does early crow. Describing an undisciplined army, after hav-ing said with elegance, His forces seem’d no army, but a crowd, Heartless, unarm’d, disorderly, and loud; he gives them a fit of the ague. 75 The allusions however are not always to vul-gar things: he offends by exaggeration as much as by diminution: 1740 The king was plac’d alone, and o’er his head A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit: Where the sun’s fruitful beams give metals birth,76 THE LIFE OF COWLEY Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, Gold, which alone more influence has than he. In one passage he starts a sudden question, to the confusion of philosophy: Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, Why does that twining plant the oak embrace? The oak, for courtship most of all unfit, 1750 And rough as are the winds that fight with it. His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpasses expectation: Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you’re in, The story of your gallant friend begin. In a simile descriptive of the Morning: As glimmering stars just at th’ approach of day, Cashier’d by troops, at last drop all away. 1760 The dress of Gabriel deserves attention: He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, That e’er the midday sun pierc’d through with light; Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, Wash’d from the morning beauties’ deepest red; An harmless flattering meteor shone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care; SAMUEL JOHNSON He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, Where the most sprightly azure pleas’d the eyes; This he with starry vapours sprinkles all, Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall; Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade, The choicest piece cut out, a scarfe is made. 77 1770 50 This is a just specimen of Cowley’s imagery: what might in general expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with the softest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and been dis-missed to improve the idea in our different pro-portions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his scarfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and taylor. 1780 Sometimes he indulges himself in a digres-sion, always conceived with his natural exuber-ance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious: I’ th’ library a few choice authors stood, Yet ’twas well stor’d, for that small store was good; 1790 Writing, man’s spiritual physic, was not then Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew; 78 THE LIFE OF COWLEY The common prostitute she lately grew, And with the spurious brood loads now the press; Laborious effects of idleness. 1800 As the ‘Davideis’ affords only four books, though intended to consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticisms as Epick poems commonly supply. The plan of the whole work is very imperfectly shewn by the third part. The duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, or shewn but upon few occasions, the full extent and the nice discriminations cannot be ascer-tained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the Odyssey than the Iliad; and many arti-fices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the best models. 1810 The past is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vision: but he has been so lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill eight books more without practising again the same modes of disposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing incum-brance inclined him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lost more instruction than delight. If the continuation of the ‘Davideis’ can be missed, it is for the learning that had been diffused over it, and the notes in which it had been explained. SAMUEL JOHNSON Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by improper decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. He gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero:

samuel johnson Every mind is now disgusted with this cum-ber of magnificence; yet I cannot refuse myself the four next lines: Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne, And bid it to put on; For long though cheerful is the way, And life, alas! allows but one ill winter’s day. 1500 In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her prescience, or, in poetical lan-guage, the foresight of events hatching in futu-rity; but having once an egg in his mind, he can-not forbear to shew us that he knows what an egg contains: Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep, And there with piercing eye Through the firm shell and the thick white dost spy Years to come a-forming lie, Close in their sacred fecundine asleep. The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically, expressed by Casimir, a writer who has many of the beauties and faults of Cowley: Omnibus mundi Dominator horis Aptat urgendas per inane pennas, Pars adhuc nido latet, futuros Crescit in annos87. 1520 Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried, by a kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which re-quire still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red Sea, new dies the waters name; and Eng-land, during the Civil War, was Albion no more, nor to be named from white. It is surely by some fascination not easily surmounted, that a writer professing to revive the noblest and highest writ-ing in verse, makes this address to the new year: 1530 Nay, if thou lov’st me, gentle year, Let not so much as love be there, Vain fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year, There’s of this caution little need, Yet, gentle year, take heed Although I fear, How thou dost make Such a mistake; As by thy cruel predecessors has been shewn; For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, I fain would try, for once, if life can live with-out it. Such love I mean alone 1540 The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior – Ye Criticks, say How poor to this was Pindar’s style! Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or Nemeaean songs what Antiquity has 90 the noblest and highest… verse Preface to ‘Pindarique THE LIFE OF COWLEY 1550 disposed them to expect, will at least see that they are ill represented by such puny poetry; and all will determine that if this be the old Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival. To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley’s sentiments must be added the uncer-tainty and looseness of his measures. He takes the liberty of using in any place a verse of any length, from two syllables to twelve. The verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little har-mony to a modern ear; yet by examining the syl-lables we perceive them to be regular, and have reason enough for supposing that the ancient audiences were delighted with the sound. The imitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting: to have preserved a constant return of the same numbers, and to have supplied smoothness of transition and continuity of thought. 1560 It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of numbers is the very thing which makes that kind of poesy fit for all manner of subjects. But he should have remembered, that what is fit for everything can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verse arises from the known measure of the lines, and uniform structure of the stanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved. If the Pindarick style be what Cowley thinks it, the highest and noblest kind of writing in verse”, it can be adapted only to high and noble subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poet with the critick, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of writing in verse, which, according to Sprat, is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to prose. 1580 This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flat-tered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately overspread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing else could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and disor-der tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre”, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the Musæ Anglicanæ. Pindarism prevailed above half a century; but at last died gradually away, and other imitations supply its place. 1590 The Pindarique Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical reputation, that I 1600 am not willing to dismiss them with unabated censure; and surely though the mode of their composition be erroneous, yet many parts de-serve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehension of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the greatness of one part is disgraced by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives the noblest concep-tions the appearance of a fabric august in the plan, but mean in the materials. Yet surely those verses are not without a just claim to praise; of which it may be said with truth, that no but Cowley could have written them. 1610 The ‘Davideis’ now remains to be consid-ered; a poem which the author designed to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no scruple of declaring, because the Aeneid had that number; but he had leisure or perseverance only to write the third part”. Epick poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and Cowley. That we have not the whole ‘Da-videis’ is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at least,