Seminar Lit.eng I.2

8/12/2019 Seminar Lit.eng I.2

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A Song For St. Cecilia's Day

John Dryden From harmony,[1] from heavenly harmony

This universal frame[2] began.When Nature underneath a heap

Of jarring atoms lay,

And could not heave her head, 5

The tuneful voice was heard from high:

"Arise, ye more than dead!"

Then cold and hot and moist and dry

In order to their stations leap,

And Music's power obey. 10

From harmony, from heavenly harmony

This universal frame began;

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,

The diapason closing full in Man.[3] 15

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

When Jubal[4] struck the corded shell,[5]

His list'ning brethren stood around,And, wond'ring, on their faces fell

To worship that celestial sound, 20

Less than a god they thought there could not dwell

Within the hollow of that shell

That spoke so sweetly and so well.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

The trumpet's loud clangor 25

Excites us to arms,With shrill notes of anger

And mortal alarms.[6]

The double double double beat

Of the thundering drum 30

Cries, "Hark, the foes come!

Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat!"

The soft complaining flute

In dying notes discovers[7]

The woes of hopeless lovers, 35

Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.



Sharp violins proclaim

Their jealous pangs and desperation,

Fury, frantic indignation,

Depth of pains and height of passion, 40

For the fair disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach,

What human voice can reach

The sacred organ's praise?

Notes inspiring holy love, 45

Notes that wing their heavenly ways

To mend[8] the choirs above.

Orpheus[9] could lead the savage race,

And trees unrooted left their place,Sequacious of the lyre; 50

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:

When to her organ vocal breath was given,

An angel heard, and straight[10] appeared--

Mistaking earth for heaven. GRAND CHORUS

As from the power of sacred lays 55 The spheres began to move,

And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the blest above:

So, when the last and dreadful hour[11]

This crumbling pageant shall devour, 60

The trumpet shall be heard on high,

The dead shall live, the living die,

And Music shall untune the sky.

NOTE. Dryden wrote this song in 1687 for the festival of St. Cecilia, the patron

saint of music. To be appreciated it must be read aloud, for it is full of musical effects,

especially stanzas 3-6. St. Cecilia has been represented by Raphael and other artists as

playing upon some instrument, surrounded by listening angels.

[1.] From harmony, etc. Some of the ancients believed that music helped in the

creation of the heavenly bodies, and that their motions were accompanied by a harmonyknown as "the music of the spheres."

[2.] This universal frame, the visible universe.



[3.] The diapason, etc. The diapason means here the entire compass of tones. The

idea is that in man, the highest of God's creatures, are included all the virtues and

powers of the lower creation.

[4.] Jubal. It is said of Jubal: "He was the father of all such as

handle the harp and organ."--Genesis iv, 21.

[5.] The corded shell, i.e. the lyre. The first lyre was supposed to have been

formed by drawing strings over a tortoise shell.

[6.] Mortal alarms, i.e. notes that rouse men to deadly conflict.

[7.] Discovers, reveals.

[8.] Mend, amend, improve.

[9.] Orpheus is said to have been a Thracian poet who moved rocks and treesand tamed wild beasts by playing upon his lyre.

[10.] Straight, straightway, immediately.

[11.] The last and dreadful hour, the Day of Judgment.

“A Song for St. Cecilia's Day”, composed in 1687, is the first of two great odes

written by poet laureate John Dryden and set to music for the annual St. Cecilia's Day

celebration held every November 22 from 1683 to 1703 and sponsored by the London

Musical Society. St. Cecilia, an early Christian martyr and patron saint of music, washonoured at these public celebrations with concerts and religious ceremonies featuring

every year an original commemorative ode commissioned by the Society. Italian

composer G. B. Draghi wrote the first musical arrangement for “A Song for St. Cecilia's

Day” in 1687. In the 1730s, G. F. Handel created superlative new musical scores for both

of the St. Cecilia odes of Dryden.



An Essay on Man: Epistle 1

To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke

Alexander Pope

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things

To low ambition, and the pride of kings.

Let us (since life can little more supply

Than just to look about us and to die)

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan;

A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;

Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.

Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield;

The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore

Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,

And catch the manners living as they rise;

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;

But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I.

Say first, of God above, or man below,

What can we reason, but from what we know?

Of man what see we, but his station here,

From which to reason, or to which refer?

Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,



'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who through vast immensity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compose one universe,

Observe how system into system runs,

What other planets circle other suns,

What varied being peoples ev'ry star,

May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.

But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,

The strong connections, nice dependencies,

Gradations just, has thy pervading soul

Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,

And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II.

Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,

Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?

First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?

Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made

Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?

Or ask of yonder argent fields above,

Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest

That Wisdom infinite must form the best,

Where all must full or not coherent be,



And all that rises, rise in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain

There must be somewhere, such a rank as man:

And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)

Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,

A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;

In God's, one single can its end produce;

Yet serves to second too some other use.

So man, who here seems principal alone,

Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,

Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;

'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains

His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains:

When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,

Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:

Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend

His actions', passions', being's, use and end;

Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why

This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;

Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:

His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;



His time a moment, and a point his space.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?

The blest today is as completely so,

As who began a thousand years ago.

III.

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.

Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

Man never is, but always to be blest:



The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

His soul, proud science never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,

Behind the cloud topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n;

Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,

Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.

To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV.

Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense

Weigh thy opinion against Providence;

Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,

Say, here he gives too little, there too much:

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,

Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;

If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,

Alone made perfect here, immortal there:

Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,



Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.

In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;

All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.

Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,

Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

V.

Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,

Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine:

For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,

Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;

Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,

The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;

For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;

For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;

My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."

But errs not Nature from this gracious end,

From burning suns when livid deaths descend,

When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep

Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?

"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause

Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;



Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:

And what created perfect?"—Why then man?

If the great end be human happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?

As much that end a constant course requires

Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,

As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,

Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;

Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?

From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;

Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?

In both, to reason right is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,

Were there all harmony, all virtue here;

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never passion discompos'd the mind.

But ALL subsists by elemental strife;

And passions are the elements of life.

The gen'ral order, since the whole began,

Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.



VI.

What would this man? Now upward will he soar,

And little less than angel, would be more;

Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears

To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.

Made for his use all creatures if he call,

Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?

Nature to these, without profusion, kind,

The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;

Each seeming want compensated of course,

Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;

All in exact proportion to the state;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:

Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone?

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, man is not a fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,

T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?

Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,



To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,

Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,

How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still

The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?

Who finds not Providence all good and wise,

Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII.

Far as creation's ample range extends,

The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:

Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,

From the green myriads in the peopled grass:

What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,

The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:

Of smell, the headlong lioness between,

And hound sagacious on the tainted green:

Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,

To that which warbles through the vernal wood:

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:

In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true

From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?

How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,

Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!



'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier;

For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!

Remembrance and reflection how allied;

What thin partitions sense from thought divide:

And middle natures, how they long to join,

Yet never pass th' insuperable line!

Without this just gradation, could they be

Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?

The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,

Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one?

VIII.

See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.

Above, how high, progressive life may go!

Around, how wide! how deep extend below!

Vast chain of being, which from God began,

Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,

Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,

No glass can reach! from infinite to thee,

From thee to nothing!—On superior pow'rs

Were we to press, inferior might on ours:

Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:

From nature's chain whatever link you strike,

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll



Alike essential to th' amazing whole,

The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the whole must fall.

Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,

Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;

Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,

Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;

Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,

And nature trembles to the throne of God.

All this dread order break —for whom? for thee?

Vile worm!—Oh madness, pride, impiety!

IX.

What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread,

Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?

What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?

Just as absurd for any part to claim

To be another, in this gen'ral frame:

Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,

The great directing Mind of All ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,

Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,



Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent,

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;

To him no high, no low, no great, no small;

He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X.

Cease then, nor order imperfection name:

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree

Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.

Submit.—In this, or any other sphere,

Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:

Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,

Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;

All discord, harmony, not understood;

All partial evil, universal good:

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.



Author Notes

Although Pope worked on this poem from 1729 and had finished the first three

epistles by 1731, they did not appear until between February and May 1733, and the

fourth epistle was published in January 1734. The first collected edition was published

in April 1734. The poem was originally published anonymously, Pope not admitting its

authorship until its appearance in The Works, II (April 1735).

The Essay on Man was originally conceived as part of a longer philosophical poem

(see Pope's introductory statement on the Design). In the larger scheme, the poem

would have consisted of four books: the first as we now have it ; a second book of

epistles on human reason, human arts, and sciences, human talent, and the use of

learning, science and wit "together with a satire against the misapplications of them" ; a

third book on the Science of Politics ; and a fourth book concerning "private ethics" or

"practical morality." The only part of the scheme, therefore, which was fully completed

was the four epistles of the Essay on Man. Parts of the fourth book of The Dunciad were

composed using material for the second book of the original essay and the four moral

epistles were originally conceived as parts of the fourth book (see below).

Pope's explanation of the aim of the work and his summary of the first epistle are

as follows. "The Design/Having proposed to write some pieces on human life and

manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) `come home to Men's Business

and Bosoms,' I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the

abstract, his nature and his state ; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral

precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it isnecessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the

proper end and purpose of its being.

"The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear

points: There are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of

the mind as in that of the body ; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the

large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and

vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The

disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the

wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, morethan advanced the theory, of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any

merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing

over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a

short yet not imperfect system of Ethics.

"This I might have done in prose ; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two

reasons. The one will appear obvious ; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written,

both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him

afterwards: The other may seem odd, but is true I found I could express them more

shortly this way than in prose itself ; and nothing is more certain, than that much of theforce as well as grace of arguments or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was

unable to treat this part of my subject in detail, without becoming dry and tedious ; or

more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from



the precision, breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man unite all these without

diminution of any of them freely confesshe will compass a thing above my capacity.

"What is now Published is only to be considered as a general Map of Man,

marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their

connection, and leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which

are to follow. Consequently, these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisureto make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am

here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to

follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.

ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST EPISTLE/Of the Nature and State of Man

with respect to

the UNlVERSE/Of Man in the abstract

I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations

of systems and things, ver. 17 ff.

II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a Being suited to his place and rank in

the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to Ends and

Relations to him unknown, ver. 35 ff.

III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a

future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, ver. 77 ff.

IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the

cause of man's error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and

judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of his

dispensations, ver. 113 ff.

V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that

perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131 ff.

VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand

he demands the perfections of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of

the brutes ; though, to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would

render him miserable. ver. 173 ff.

VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the

sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to

creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought,

refection, reason ; that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207 ff.

VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend,above and below us ; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole

connected creation must be destroyed, ver. 233 ff.



IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, ver. 259 ff.

X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our

present and future state, ver. 281 ff. to the end.

St. John: Henry St. John (pronounced sin-jin), Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751),outstanding Tory statesman who had to flee England in 1715. Pardoned, he returned in

1723. Bolingbroke was an early friend of Pope and Swift, and a member of the

Scriblerus Club. He is considered to have given Pope the orig쮡l impetus for writing the

Essay on Man, the Moral Essays, and the Imitations of Horace. A freethinker and Deist,

he may have provided Pope with the "philosophy" of the Essay, although there has been

a continual controversy as to whether the poem's point of view is Christian or Deistic.

6. Maze. A labyrinth-like arrangement was frequently used in eighteenth-century

gardening. plan: (1) a drawing or sketch, (2) a scheme of arrangement.

8. Paradise Lost, I, 1-2.

10. open ... covert: terms from hunting, applying to ground that will not shelter animals

and ground that will.

11. tracts: (1) regions, (2) tracks.

14. continuing the hunting metaphor.

15. candid: (1) clear, (2) ingenuous.

16. Cf. Paradise Lost, I, 26. 17 ff. "[Pope] He can reason only from things known, and

judge only with regard to his own system."

29-31. The terms frame, bearings, gradation, ties may have architectural overtones, but

they also along with connections and ependencies were key terms of the new science.

33. the great chain: Paradise Lost, V, 469-90. Cf. below, I, 207-41.

35 ff. "[Pope] He is not therefore a judge of his own perfection or imperfection, but is

certainly such a being as is suited to his place and rank in the creation."

35-36. Cf. Rom. 9:20.

42. Satellites: tetrasyllabic: sa-tal-li-tes. Jove is the planet Jupiter, four of whose

satellites were discovered by Galileo.

43-46. Of systems ... due degree. These are axioms common to many traditional

cosmologies: (1) that a deity of Infinite Wisdom exists and in his goodness could onlycreate the best of all possible worlds ; (2) that the world so created is a plenum

formosum, i.e., full, containing the maximum number of kinds of beings ; (3) that the



hierarchy of kinds of being is arranged in even steps, so that each kind has its due

degree.

47-48. Then ... man. There must be a rank in the scale combining rational and animal.

53. works: also in the sense of the mechanical works in a clock or machine.

54. movement: also with reference to mechanism.

59. which: continuing the imagery of clockwork or mechanism.

64. Egypt's Cod. A bull was worshipped at Memphis under the name Apis.

69-70. fault: rhymed with "ought."

77. "[Pope] His happiness depends on his ignorance to a certain degree."

79. "[Pope] See this pursued in Epist. 3 vers. 66 etc., 79 etc."

87-90. Cf. Matt. 10:29-31.

91. "[Pope] And on his hope of a relation to a future state."

94. "[Pope] Further open'd in Epist. 2, vers. 283. Epist. 3, vers. 74. Epist. 4, vers. 346,

etc."

113 ff. Cf. Raphael's advice to Adam, Paradise Lost, VII, 167-74.

117. gust: taste, i.e., the pleasure of the palate.

119-22. Cf. Abdiel's speech to Satan, Paradise Lost, V, 822 ff.

127-28. Cf. Bacon's Advancement of Learning: "Aspiring to be like God in power, the

angels transgressed and fell (Isa. XIV, 14) by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man

transgressed and fell (Gen., iii, 5)."

133. genial: generative.

152. desires: i.e., passions.

156. Borgia: alludes to the fifteenth-century Italian family notorious for murders and

other crimes. Catiline: the young conspirator against the Roman Republic who was

attacked by Cicero.

157. he ... forms: Ps. 97:4, 125:1.

158. wings ... storms: Ps. 104:3, 107:25.

160. Young Ammon: Alexander the Great. Cf. Essay on Criticism, note on line 376.



170. "[Pope] See this subject extended in Epist. 2 from vers. 100 to 122, 165, etc."

181. compensated: pronounced compé\;nsated.

182. "[Pope] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that in proportion as they

are formed for strength, their swiftness is lessened, or as they are formed for swiftness,

their strength is abated."

185. "[Pope] See Epist. 3, vers. 79 etc. and 110 etc."

194. Man ... fly. It was widely believed that the fly's eye had microscopic powers.

199. effluvia: "the real outflow of material particles too subtle to be perceived by the

sense."

207 ff. [Pope] There is an universal ORDER and GRADATION through the whole visible

world, of the sensible and mental faculties, which causes the subordination of creatureto creature, and of all creatures to man, whose reason alone countervails all the other

faculties.... The extent, limits and use of human reason and science, the author designed

as the subject of his next book of Ethic Epistles."

212. beam. Sight was believed to be caused by rays emitted by the eye.

213. "[Pope] The manner of the Lions hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this:

At their first going out in the nighttime they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the

noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the nostril.

It is probable the story of the jackal's hunting for the lion was occasioned byobservation of this defect of scent in that terrible animal."

214. sagacious: "acute in perception" (OED). tainted: smelling of an animal, usually one

that is hunted.

223. barrier: a disyllabic word with stress on the second syllable.

235. progressive: "proceeding step by step" (OED).

238. The double order in human, angel, man is explained by such traditional doctrine as:"In our minds, verily, we be so celestial and of so godly capacity that we may surmount

above the nature of angels and be unite, knit, and made one with God" (Erasmus,

Enchiridon, IV).

248. amazing: ''the act of causing mental stupefaction or frenzy" (OED).

255-56. Cf. Paradise Lost, VI, 218-19, 832-34.

258. "[Pope] The extravagance, impiety and pride of such a desire."

259 ff. Pope uses St. Paul's analogy of the body-members illustrating unity in the system

of grace and applies it to the system of nature. See I Cor. 12:15-21.



Tintern Abbey

William Wordsworth

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.--Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 20

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms,



Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration:--feelings too 30

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world, 40

Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,--

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,



We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft-- 50

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 60

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led: more like a man 70

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,



And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all.--I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love, 80

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompence. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 90

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;



A motion and a spirit, that impels 100

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 110

Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once, 120

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead



From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 130

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain-winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 140

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence--wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream 150



We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!



Kubla Khan

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:



And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,



And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.



Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearièd,

For ever piping songs for ever new;



More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea-shore, 35

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 40

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' 50

Seminar Lit.eng I.2

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Transcript of Seminar Lit.eng I.2