Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/168

Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
 Ye died amidst your dying country's cries—^{[N 1]}
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
 On yonder cliffs, a griesly band,^{[N 2]}
I see them sit, they linger yet. 45
 Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.^{[N 3]}

II. 1.
 "Weave the warp, and weave the woof,^{[N 4]}
The winding sheet of Edward's race. 50

Notes

See Callimach. II. Dian. y. 211. Theocr. Id. cap. 53. Quint. Smyrn. x. 475. Catul. xiv. 1. Virg. Æn. iv. 31. Otway, in his Venice Preserved, act v. p. 309, was more immediately in Gray's mind:

"Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life,
Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee."


In Sydney's Arcadia, vol. ii. p. 415: "Oh, mother, said Amphialus, speak not of doing them hurt, no more than to mine eyes or my heart, or if I have any thing more dear than eyes or heart unto me." King Lear, act i. sc. 2: "Dearer

than eye-sight."

1. V. 42. "And greatly falling with a falling state," Pope.
   "And couldst not fall, but with thy country's fate,"
   Dryden. W.
2. V. 44. I have thought that this image was shadowed by the poet from the following passage of Stat. xi. 420. The third line is almost translated:
   "Ipse quoque Ogygios monstra ad gentilia manes
   Tartareus rector porta jubet ira reclusa.
   Montibus insidunt patriis, tristique corona
   Infecore diem, et vinci sua crimina gaudent."
   
   
   "For neither were ye playing on the steep, where your old bards, the famous Druids lie." Lycidas.
3. V. 48. See the Norwegian ode (the Fatal Sisters) that follows. Gray.
4. V. 49. "No wool to work on, neither weft nor warp."
   Swift's Misc. viii. p. 198, ed. Nich.