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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013361740 
 
THOMAS GRAY 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, 
 Of Eton College. 
 
 Uti'umque sacro digna silentio 
 Mirantur umbrce dicere ; — 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
 
 ETON : R. INGALTON DRAKE. 
 
 1895., 
 
/\,-LTCj2.Lt-H- 
 
A LETTER TO THE REV. D. C. TOVEY, VICAR OF WORPLESDON. 
 
 Eton College^ 
 
 Feb. /St, i8gs. 
 
 My dear Tovey, 
 
 You remember how good Dr. Brown, Master of 
 Pembroke Hall, paid a m,elancholy visit to Grays room.s a 
 day or two after the funeral, when they had been dismantled. 
 He records it in a letter to a friend, adding the well-known 
 phrase, "He never spoke out." All that the Master m,eant, 
 as is evident from the context, was, that Gray had no fancy 
 for describing the symptoms of the suppressed gout from, 
 which he suffered. But Matthew Arnold, with felicitous 
 insight, makes this simple phrase the keynote of the life of 
 one of the most reticent of mankind. 
 
 Perhaps it would be difficult to find in history or literature 
 a man, who would be less likely to have indulged in stich a 
 rhetorical and retrospective soliloquy as the following, thaii 
 Gray himself. But the soliloquy is a convenient figure, 
 which, enables a writer, at the cost perhaps of the dignity of 
 his subject, or as the ''Daily Telegraph" would write, his 
 " biographee," to rip a man up, as Lord Tennyson said with 
 m,ore force than delicacy, like a pig. The public is insatiable 
 now-a-days, and if a man has the bad taste not to want his 
 
secret thoughts in lonely places published in the evening paper, 
 the public is always glad to know what someone else thinks 
 they may have been. "Of all the mistakes we commit" George 
 Eliot said, '' prophecy is the most gratuitous :" and m^y only 
 fear is that you will say that prophecy conducted in the 
 pluperfect subjunctive is a mistake m,ore gratuitous still. 
 
 You are an erudite critic, and one of the most accomplished 
 of Grays accomplished biographers. You may have forgotten 
 that I was your colleague, but I have not forgotten that you 
 were also my friend. And it is that I may have the pleasure 
 of reminding myself of that fact that I offer you the following 
 verses. 
 
 Believe m.e to be. 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON. 
 
\Time ; — March, lyyi. Place ; — Rooms in the Hitcham 
 Building of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Gray is under- 
 stood to speak.] 
 
THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 :o:- 
 
 ^ was at Ferrara, in a palace court, — 
 
 The shafts methought of that vast colonnade 
 Too slim and slight to bear the incumbent mass 
 Of plinth and ashlar, and the luscious wreaths 
 Of fruit and foliage looped from knob to knob — 
 But that I hardly noted : 'twas a bird, 
 A monstrous bird, the tyrant of the crag. 
 With gilded claws and beak — a yellower fire 
 Flamed in his eye — that dragged a gilded chain 
 And ponderous ball, and loathed his servitude. 
 And once he raised himself with urgent wings 
 Winnowing the drowsy air, and grasped the frieze 
 With shrieking claws — but soon the swinging weight 
 Thrust him, all glaring, to the dust again, 
 So that he fiercely beat his prisoned wings. 
 And bit the unyielding metal, vexed at heart ; — 
 I could have wept to hear the portress laugh. 
 
And I of late, raising these weary eyes, 
 That taint the radiant beam with motes that flit 
 Across my vision, thick as summer flies. 
 Have seemed to see the baffled gaze, the glance 
 That sad bird cast about him, as he stared. 
 And snuffed the fragrant enervated air. 
 So strange a heaviness has grown of late 
 About me, from the hour when glimmering dawn 
 Peers through my latticed panes, and from the court 
 The wholesome sounds smite the distempered brain 
 With most unmanning horror, clutch the heart 
 In difficult panic, thick with labouring sighs ; 
 Then in that shadow-land the dreaming mind — 
 Like some new fly with crumpled wings undried, 
 Breathless and dizzy from her unborn trance, — 
 Retraces step by step her backward road, 
 Down to the gates of nothing ; dips her brush 
 To dash with radiant dyes what might have been. 
 But smears what is, and what is yet to be. 
 In most portentous dimness. 
 
 First I see 
 My mother, tender, careful, sore beset 
 With sordid fears and fierce unloving words, 
 And almost maddened with the faltering touch 
 Of all those baby hands about her breast. 
 That clung a moment and unclasped again. 
 And were not : yet to me, sad heir, bequeathed 
 
The intolerable legacy of love, — 
 
 Dumb love, that dares not own itself enthralled, 
 
 Creep to the dear confessional of fate, 
 
 But from some piteous instinct, hangs amazed, 
 
 And slips into the silent throng again. 
 
 Next, I remember how, a puny child, 
 I drowsed and fretted o'er the outlandish task, 
 Hard haunting names and misbegotten words. 
 Like barbarous arms and shells from over sea, — 
 Till all at once, as men, that pierce a well 
 And batter, dizzied with their own hot breath. 
 Drill through some cool and limpid reservoir. 
 And hear the din of waters breaking out. 
 Cooled through old years in green unnoted caves, — 
 So, as I fumed, I was at once aware 
 Of magic hands that beckoned, robes that waved. 
 As though some pompous multitude swept by ; 
 As Hermes drove to regions vexed and dim 
 The hurrying ghosts, so Virgil waved his wand. 
 And faces grew upon the hollow air, 
 The snarling trumpets, and the noise of war. 
 
 And once, but once, since that wild thunderstroke. 
 The voice of waters, deep, ineffable. 
 Hath thrilled my heart, when Ossian shaggy-haired. 
 And veiled in flying rack of ragged cloud. 
 Swept from the Northern wild, and smote his harp 
 With such a stormy elemental rage, 
 
It made me mad, — he with such yearning deep, 
 With such unconscious savage nakedness. 
 Out of the world's youth, impotent, half-beast, 
 Half-hero, leaned and cried upon the air. 
 
 My sober manhood gained, not apt for jest 
 Or loud uproarious revel, such a maze 
 Of intertwined and tortuous passages, 
 By which mankind wind backward to the dim 
 And wailing Chaos, to the feet of God, 
 Yawned vague before me, that I hastened on. 
 And so, through many a dim and dreaming day. 
 Wandered alone in labyrinthine glooms. 
 And trackless wastes, with sight of giant souls. 
 Whose robes I seemed to touch, and see their brows 
 Contracted grim, and hear their muttered speech : 
 Bishops and earls, tyrants and orators, 
 Hugh with caressing gestures, Hereward 
 With lion's mane, Morcar and Waltheof, 
 Edward Confessor with his maiden flush. 
 And Alfred, with a demon at his brain 
 And clouded eyes at council ; Alcuin 
 And stately Charlemagne ; the pomp of Rome, — 
 Pale Nero softly smiling, Cato stern. 
 Imperial Caesar with his haggard brow, 
 And Sulla with the blotched and seamy face ; 
 Or Alexander flashed, a meteor light. 
 In sudden radiance ; Alcibiades 
 
Divinely insolent, and Socrates 
 
 Battered and bruised in some prodigious strife. 
 
 All these I saw, and lingered, glad at heart. 
 
 In stately harbourage of gardens cool. 
 
 By splashing fountains, leafy colonnades, 
 
 White temples, bosomed deep in swelling woods, 
 
 Where slender statues seemed to tread on air. 
 
 And lastly, wearied of that bright young world 
 Of eager glances, laughing certainty, 
 I turned away, and drove my plough afield 
 In tangled wastes, Bengala and Cathay, 
 And stumbled through the tombs of nameless kings, 
 Old dynasties, and fierce outlandish saints, 
 Gods, demigods, till like a river vast 
 From cold Siberian hills, the stream of time, 
 By haggard capes and icy promontories. 
 Weltered and widened to a shapeless sea. 
 
 Yet to what purpose all this waste of years ? 
 These vast abandoned schemes, these hopeless hopes .■* 
 I know not : save it were to warm and soothe 
 The shuddering soul, that fills its prison walls. 
 When blank and bare, with scrawls of boding fate. 
 And filmy shapes and dreary fantasies, 
 Yet pleased perchance — I bare my inmost thought ! — 
 With shadowy fame, that like a royal cloak 
 Hung loose, and masked my wasted, naked frame. 
 And, while I scorned the crowd, yet pleased to note 
 
That I was noted, — ah the sorry thought ! — 
 
 When idle babblers hushed their vacant talk 
 
 To gaze at me, and whisper I was one 
 
 Who held deep converse with the secret muse. 
 
 It pleased me, aye it pleased, to wrest respect 
 
 For me, the scrivener's son, from ancient names. 
 
 Effete inheritors of sires, whose deeds 
 
 Are stamped and blazoned on the storied page ; — 
 
 For witness ye : — beside our garden-end, 
 
 Behind the leafy butts, where Ridley loved 
 
 To walk, and con the scripture o'er and o'er, 
 
 The hollow vaulted sphere of plaster, daubed 
 
 To show the posture of the firmament 
 
 To gazers, wondering at the measured chinks, 
 
 The levers and the wheels, who briskly praise 
 
 Our learned eccentric's ingenuities 
 
 Agape, yet never wondered at the stars. 
 
 Or stayed to gaze upon the enormous night. 
 
 ******* 
 
 O Earth, farewell, my Earth, whom I have loved 
 More like a patient lover than a child, 
 O leafy aisles, and winding rushy glades. 
 Deep forest dingles, where I loved to lie 
 Sequestered, while the sun wheeled overhead, 
 And westering tinged the glimmering boles with fire ;- 
 The ragged raincloud beating from the West, 
 The pure and spacious morning : — I have watched 
 
With faithful heart, and fond obsequious eye, 
 The sweep of punctual seasons, when the spring 
 Enlaced the privet hedge with tender spears. 
 And sudden greenness leapt from bush to bush. 
 When swelled the peach, when bulged the buxom plum, 
 When birds were mute, or fluted shrill and high. 
 What time the figtree furled her leafy claw. 
 And yellowing planetrees dangled velvet balls. 
 
 Aye, in pursuit of some unheeded spirit, 
 My weary foot through trackless solitudes 
 Has threaded slow, by high and heathery moors. 
 And passes, where the dripping ledges lean 
 Together, and the writhing rowan clings, 
 And shows her fretted leaf against the sky. 
 Up to the brows of white and haggard rocks. 
 And shoots of stone, and caves, where clammy drops 
 Distil in horror from the flinty brows 
 Of mountains, monstrous fantasies of God. 
 
 All these I would have sung, but dim constraint 
 Pressed close my stammering lips and trembling tongue ; 
 It needs some ready singer, some young heart 
 To throw a sacred sunshine of its own 
 On these dark haunts, and read the riddle right 
 Of monstrous laws, that work their purpose out 
 For trembling man, unheeding how they crush 
 A thousand hopes, so one sure step be gained, 
 One soul set higher on the stairs of God. 
 
8 
 
 Not I, who scarce, through sad laborious days, 
 Can write, and blot, and write the languid verse 
 Erase the erring strophe, gild the rhyme, 
 Set and reset the curious epithet, 
 And prune the rich parenthesis away ; 
 Then thrust, but with a secret tenderness. 
 As erring maidens clasp their babes of shame. 
 My puny, piteous weakling from the doors. 
 
 ^ ^t' ^ ^ 4f tP TP 
 
 And ye, my friends, whose souls are knit with mine, 
 I would not linger late, and make parade 
 Of ceremonious weakness, fond adieux. 
 With grave-eyed piteous faces round my bed ; 
 For some are passed into the silent land. 
 Who smile and beckon me in sudden dreams 
 With most unearthly radiance ; some forget 
 The gracious years, or flourish, whirled away 
 On fuller tides ; Horace, the ailing lord 
 Of plaster palaces and hollow groves. 
 Absorbed in half-a-hundred tiny arts. 
 Master of none ; who cannot learn to merge 
 The fretful patron in the equal friend ; — 
 The plump precentor, with his tragedies 
 And pompous odes that tune their notes from mine 
 Yet droop and wither to a sickly end. 
 And last and dearest, he who flashed across 
 My wintry gloom, a sweet and vivid ray. 
 
9 
 
 Flashed from a land of ancient mountainous snows, 
 
 Himself more pure, and charmed me from myself, 
 
 Out of my shadowy cave of bitter thoughts, 
 
 To warm and welcome sunshine — seized my hands 
 
 With laughing hands, and drew from me my store 
 
 Of hoarded learning, while I learnt from him. 
 
 From those pure eyes so sweetly raised to mine, 
 
 By youthful jest and petulant questioning. 
 
 To stablish and repair my ancient faith 
 
 In gracious love and sweet humanities. 
 
 That in my sunless gloom had half-decayed. 
 
 Farewell, beloved ; child of my heart, farewell ! 
 And ere the dark stream thrust me from the shore. 
 Know that these failing lips at last pronounced 
 A thousand blessings on my tender child. 
 
 tF ■)(• * * ^ TT "TF 
 
 And now once more, before the dizzy will 
 Relax her tremulous grip, ere nerve and limb 
 Prove traitor to the faint and failing brain, 
 I will look forth upon the spacious heaven, 
 Will mount the battlemented tower, and see 
 League upon league the interminable fen 
 Ripple his steely waters to the wind, 
 Glint in the horizon, break in reedy waves 
 On woody islands crowned with byre and barn. 
 Where all day long the goodman, biding, hears 
 No sound save clack of waters, or the drum 
 
lO 
 
 Of bittern, or the curlew's whistle faint, 
 
 Or scream of ruffs, that stamp the marge to mire, 
 
 Or booming of a culver down the marsh. 
 
 Or grave entreating bells, that ring the folk 
 
 To sermon, in the pauses of the wind. 
 
 But I beyond the fen, the holy towers. 
 Beyond the sluggish sea that laps the ooze 
 With melancholy murmur, hear a cry 
 That calls me, and is answered by the lapse 
 Of pulses throbbing faint, intimate pangs 
 Abhorred ; as old dismantled priories. 
 That seem to doze across the summer fields, 
 Yet slip, dismembered by the intruding frost. 
 That cracks their hoary bones, and as they muse, 
 With sudden start and shock portend decay. 
 
PR 4099.B5T4 " """"'"' "-'"'"^^ 
 Thomas Gray, 
 
 3 1924 013 361 740 
 

 
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