Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/165

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)^{[N 1]} 20
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
 "Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave,^{[N 2]}
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave, 25
 Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs^{[N 3]} breathe;
Vocal^{[N 4]} no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's^{[N 5]} harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

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Notes

of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings, both believed to be originals, one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans' collection at Paris. Gray.

1. V. 20. "Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind."
   Par. L. i. ver. 535. W. See Todd's note.
   "The meteors of a troubled heaven,"
   Shakesp. K. Henry IV. pt. i. act i. sc. 1. Luke.
   Todd mentions a passage very similar to the one in the text: "The circumference of his snowy beard like the streaming rays of a meteor appeared," Persian Tales of Inatulla, vol. ii. p. 41. This image is often used metaphorically, as Stat. Theb. iii. 532. And see Manil. Astron. i. 836.
   Ford, in his Perkin Warbeck, p. 25, ed. Weber:
   "———since the beard
   Of this wild comet conjur'd into France."
   
   
2. V. 23. "The woods and desart caves." Lycidas.
3. V. 26. "The stream that down the distant rocks hoarse murmuring fell." Thomson. Luke.
4. V. 27. See some observations on the poetical and proper use of "vocal," as used by Gray in this place, in Huntingford. Apolog, for the Monostr. p. 31.
5. V. 28. Hoel is called high-born, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of his father's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, and Normans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that are extant testify. See Evan. Spec. p. 26, 4to.; and Jones. Relics, vol. ii. p. 36, where he is called the "Princely