Confused a while the mixed ideas lie,
With nought of mark to be discovered by,
Like colours undistinguished in the night,
Till the dusk images, moved to the light,
Teach the discerning faculty to choose,
Which it had best adopt, and which refuse.[1]
Here, rougher strokes, touched with a careless dash,
Resemble the first setting of a face:
There, finished draughts in form more full appear,
And to their justness ask no further care.
Meanwhile with inward joy I proud am grown,
To see the work successfully go on:
And prize myself in a creating power,
That could make something, what was nought before.
Sometimes a stiff, unwieldy thought I meet,
Which to my laws will scarce be made submit:
But when, after expense of pains and time,
'Tis managed well, and taught to yoke in rhyme,
I triumph more than joyful warriors would,
Had they some stout and hardy foe subdued,
And idly think, less goes to their command,
That make armed troops in well-placed order stand,
- ↑ Mr. Cornish, in a communication to Notes and Queries, refers to two passages in the writings of Dryden and Lord Byron in which the idea thrown out in these excellent lines is to be found. The passage in Dryden occurs in the dedication of the Rival Ladies, and is as follows: ’When it was only a confused mass of thoughts tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was as yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards the light, there to be distinguished, and there to be chosen or rejected by the judgment.’’Had Oldham or Dryden the prior claim to the thought?' asks Mr. Cornish. The question is easily answered. The Rival Ladies was acted at the King's House in 1664, and printed in the same year. Oldham's poem was written in 1678. Byron's appropriation of the idea is in the Marino Faliero, and it is clear from the verbal evidence that he took it from the original source:
'—as yet 'tis but a chaos
Of darkly brooding thoughts; my fancy is
In her first work, more nearly to the light
Holding the sleeping images of things
For the selection of the pausing judgment.'—Act. i. sc. 2.
