221 223 Nut-brown. A common epithet for ale. The village inn has always been and still is the great meeting-place of the villagers. One of the best descriptions of the talk there is to be found in George Eliot's Silas Marner, Chapter VI 226 Parlor splendors. Splendors of the parlor. 232 Twelve good rules. An allusion to an old broadside (a large sheet of paper printed only on one side), having at the top a woodcut of Charles I's execution, usually found hanging up in the public houses of the time. The rules included such things as, Reveal no secrets, Pick no quarrels, Keep no bad company, Lay no wagers. Cf. Crabbe's Parish Register: "There is King Charles and all his golden rules, Which proved misfortune's was the best of schools." 232 Game of goose. It was played on a board divided into compartments; certain of them contained the picture of a goose. The players moved over the squares according to the numbers thrown with the dice. He who alighted on a goose was privileged to move double. 234 Aspen. The trembling poplar. Its leaves are shaken by the slightest wind, their stalks being very long and slender. 234 Fennel. A fragrant plant with small yellow flowers. 236 Ranged o'er the chimney. Arranged in a row on the mantel-shelf over the fireplace. 237 Transitory. Quickly passing away. (Lat. trans. across, and ire, to go.) 238 Reprieve. To pardon a criminal. 242 Oblivion. Forgetfulness. Men sometimes seek to forget their troubles in drinking. The farmer, in his frequent visits to the market town would learn the news; barbers are always described as great talkers and gossips. 243 247 Host. Landlord of the inn. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue. 751, "A seemly man our host he was withal." 248 Mantling bliss. Foaming ale. Abstract for concrete. Drinking beer puts a man in a happy state of mind. 248 Mantling. Cf. line 132. 249 Coy. Bashful. (O. Fr. coy, from Lat. quietus (quies, rest), quiet.) 250 Cf. Ben Jonson's "O leave a kiss but in the cup," and Scott's Lochinvar, "The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up.' 252 Lowly train. People of low degree, poor, humble. 252-6 The poet wisely prefers nature to art, feelings that come of their own accord (spontaneous). 256 Native. Natural. 258 Note the three negative past participles that form this line. Shakespeare and Milton sometimes use a similar construction. 259 Pomp. Procession. 259 Masquerade. An entertainment where the guests wore masks in order that they might not be recognized by their friends. It was a favorite form of amusement in the eighteenth century. 261-4 The pursuit after pleasure alone can never be satisfying or bring happiness. The desires we can actually attain are never the highest, and often are a disappointment. 261 Ere. Before. 263 Decoy. To lead into a snare, deceive. 269 Ships laden with valuable metals sail over the ocean. 269 Proud. Adjective for adverb, a common and permissible construction in poetry. 270 Folly. A personification. 278 Equipage. Horses, carriages and servants. (Fr. equiper, to supply.) 286 Necessary products fly out of the country in order to be exchanged for the luxuries that society needs, and so nations are ruined, But the poet exaggerates the evils of wealth and luxury. 286 All. Entirely. 287 Plain. Neatly dressed. 288 Secure to please. Without care or anxiety to please. (Lat. sine, without, cura, care.) Note the antithesis "solicitous to bless," line 293. 290 Her beauty is quite natural: she employs no artificial aids. 295 The simile (lines 287-298) compares a land given up to a luxury with an old woman who, in the hope of still attracting admirers, tries to repair her faded beauty by artificial means. 297 Verging to. Bordering on, sloping down to. 297 Verge. Boundary, limit: seldom used as a verb. 298 Vista. Distant view seen through an avenue. seen.) (Lat. vergere, to bend.) (Ital. vista, view, Lat. visum, something 298 Palace. Lat. Palatium, from Palatinus, one of the seven hills of Rome. The Emperor Augustus built his residence there. Hence the name is given to the houses of sovereigns and great personages. 299 Scourged. Punished, afflicted. A metaphor from scourge, a lash, an instrument used to inflict punishment. (Lat. corium, leather.) 300 Band. Family. 301 "Him" is understood after "save." Cf. lines 186, 198. 309 305-308 These lines state the ever-recurring grievance of the enclosure of common land. When no work can be found in the villages, the inhabitants flock to the city in search of employment, and that is one of the reasons why the poverty and distress in cities is greater than in the country. 309 Sped Gone, hastened. A nominative absolute. Cf. lines 95, 157, 181, 365. (O. E. spedan, to hasten, to succeed.) 311 Baneful. Deadly, destructive. 316 Artist. The word formerly denoted an artisan, mechanic. 316 Plies. Devotes himself to. Ply meant to devote oneself to any task: we now use apply in that sense Cf. Gray's Elegy, 20, or busy housewife ply her evening care," and Wordsworth's Michael, 126, "The housewife plied her own peculiar work." 318 Until the early years of the present century, many crimes other than murder, such as forgery and sheep-stealing, were punishable by death, and as the gibbet was erected on the high-roads, it was a common object in the landscape. 318 Glooms. Looks gloomy, dark. 319 322 Dome. Palace, mansion. (Lat. domus, house.) Torches. Before street lamps were introduced, rich people were accompanied after dark by torch-bearers. The iron stands into which the torches were fixed still survive at the doors of some of the houses in the older London squares. Cf. "blazing square,' " line 321. 329 Might adorn. Might have adorned. 330 A very beautiful line, perfect both in thought and melody. Cf. for same beauty, line 344. 336 Wheel. Spinning-wheel. 337 Loveliest train. Village maidens. 341 Climes. Countries. The word "climate" was formerly applied to the regions into which the earth was divided. (Gr. klima, a slope, because the ancients thought the earth sloped from the equator to the pole.) It now means the temperature and weather of any country. 342 Convex. Rising into a rounded form. Said of a curved line when viewed from without. A curved line viewed from within is said to be concave. 66 343 Torrid. Burning hot. (Lat. torrere, to burn; from the supine tostum is derived our 'toast.") 344 Altama. Altamaha, a river in Georgia. 349 In American forests, the undergrowth is so extraordinarily thick and tall, that light and air are almost excluded. 350 During the daytime the bats of tropical regions sleep suspended by their hind-legs to the branches of trees. Bats belong to the group of wing-handed flying mammals (quadrupeds, warm blooded animals). 352 Scorpion. An animal with four pairs of limbs and a long slender tail, at the end of which is a very acute sting. They generally live in dark places and under stones. 352 Gathers death around. Collects its poison from the noxious plants around. As a matter of fact the sting though very painful is seldom, if ever, fatal to man. 354 The tail of the rattlesnake ends in a series of jointed horny pieces; when the animal shakes it, a rattling sound is heard. 355 There are no tigers in America; but poets need not, happily, keep strictly to fact (cf. line 352). In As You Like It, Shakespeare puts palms and citron trees, lions and deadly serpents into the forest of Arden, along with oaks and beeches and deer. 356 North American Indians. 357 Tornado. A violent storm, more especially the whirlwind hurricane prevalent in the West Indies, and in the Indian Ocean. It is usually accompanied with thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain. (Low Lat. tornare, to turn; Span. tornado, return.) 360 Grassy-vested. Covered or clothed with grass. (Lat. vestiri, to clothe.) Cf. Tempest IV., I 83,"short-grass'd green." 361 Covert. Thicket. 361 Warbling grove. The epithet "warbling" refers to the birds of the grove, and is thus transferred from the inhabitants to the place they inhabit. Cf. Traveller, 187, "finny deep." 363 Gloomed. Made gloomy. 368 Seats. Homes. 368 Main. The ocean. (O. E. Magan, to be strong. Cf. the expressions "might and main," "mainland," "mainmast.") As an adjective it often means chief or principal; it is thus applied to the ocean as forming the chief part of the earth's surface. 371 Sire. Grandfather. (O. E. sire (sieur), Lat. senior, the comparative of senex, old). 373 Conscious virtue. What they knew to be virtue. Cf. "conscious truth," Gray's Elegy, 69. (Lat. conscius (con, scio), known to oneself.) 379 Plaints. Complaints. A poetical word. 381 Thoughtless babes. Babes unconscious of what was happening. 382 Note the alliteration. 384 But emigration has a brighter side. Cf. Lady Dufferin's Lament of the Irish Emigrant · "They say there's bread and work for all, 386 Things like these. The simple joys of a country life. 387 Potions. Draughts. effects. 387 Insidious. Harmful. 388-394 Cf. lines 283-286. The word is generally applied to those that cause evil and unnatural 393 Sapped. Undermined. To sap is to dig. Hence sappers, the soldiers employed in undermining fortifications. 397 Methinks. It seems to me. A poetical form now obsolete except in poetry. The me is really an old dative case combined with an impersonal verb. 399 Anchoring vessel. Vessel lying at anchor. 402 Strand. The edge of land next the sea. (O. E. strand, margin edge.) Shore is that which divides the sea from the land. (O. E. sceran, to divide.) 405 Cf. Colossians III., 2: "Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth." 409 Degenerate. Sunk from a nobler state. 4II Nymph. Here, poetry. The nymphs were properly a race of female deities regarded by the Greeks as lower than the goddesses; they were chiefly connected with natural scenery. The principal were naiads, water nymphs; dryads, tree nymphs; oreads, mountain nymphs; nereids, sea nymphs. Torno's cliffs. 418 418 419 Pambamarca. The heights round Lake Tornea in the north of Sweden. 419 Equinoctial. 'In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, The muse has broke the twilight gloom To cheer the shivering native's dull abode." When the sun is directly over the equator, there is equal length of day and night over all the earth. (Lat. equus, equal, nox, nectis, night.) 428 Mole. A breakwater formed of large stones to check the force of the sea. mass.) 427-430 Boswell tells us that Dr. Johnson composed these lines. (Lat. moles, a BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH POE Few men of genius have ever lived a sadder or more unfortunate life than Edgar Allen Poe. That he was a man of brilliant genius is now apparent to everyone, but during his lifetime he often had a hard struggle to get his tales and poems printed at all, and there were times when he lived in actual want. The poet's own temperament and bringing-up were, perhaps, responsible for some of his troubles. He was the son of David Poe, a Marylander of Irish extraction, and Elizabeth Arnold, a young English actress. It was on one of his parents' acting tours that Poe was born in Boston, February 19, 1809. When the boy was still very young both parents died and left their three children alone and penniless in Richmond, Virginia. Edgar was a brilliant and beautiful child and he so attracted a wealthy Scotch merchant named Allen, that the latter finally adopted the boy and gave him his own name. He was taken to England by his new parents and placed at school under the Rev. Dr. Bransby, whom Poe has described in his tale of "William Wilson." He was a remarkably bright and clever boy and, his master says, "would have been a very good boy had he not been spoilt by his parents." These school days seem to have been among the pleasantest of the poet's life, but he was recalled to America after a few years and placed in an academy at Richmond. Here he not only distinguished himself by his aptitude for languages, especially for French, but also for his athletic feats. He excelled at leaping, rowing, swimming and in all other sports that boys love. Yet he was never a favorite with his school-fellows. This was partly because of his own self-willed and capricious nature, but more because of the fact that his parents were obscure players and he was dependent upon the bounty of others. "All this," says one of his friends, "had the effect of making the boys decline his leadership, and, on looking back on it since, I fancy it gave him a fierceness he would otherwise not have had." One friend he made while at school. This was Mrs. Helen Stannard, the mother of one of his classmates, who was very kind to him, and who is the "Helen" referred to in his poems. Unfortunately for Poe, she died while their friendship was yet young. In 1826, Poe entered the University of Virginia. But, though he was a successful and even a distinguished student, his career here was brief. He contracted debts of which Mr. Allen did not approve and which he refused to pay. A stormy scene took place, and the upshot was that Poe left home to make his way alone. Little is known of his career for the next year or so. Apparently he tried his hand at literature, chiefly poetry, but with ill-success. In 1829, Mrs. Allen, for whom he had much affection, died, and, finding home still less pleasant, Poe again published a little volume of poems. As they attracted no attention, however, he induced Mr. Allen to send him to West Point. He remained here from July until the following March, when he was expelled for disobedience. From this time on he turned to literature as his profession. Mr. Allen was now married again and Poe had only himself to depend upon. For some time life was a struggle, but in 1833 he received a hundred dollar prize offered by a magazine for the best story and in this way he won some literary friends and eventually was made editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Poe now seemed on the way to prosperity and in 1834 he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, then only a young girl of fourteen, and her mother became their faithful caretaker. It is to her that the lines, "To My Mother," are addressed. From this time on Poe's life was a continual struggle with adverse circumstances, although his best work was done in these years. In 1837 he went to New York, where he wrote for various papers, but the next year we find him in Philadelphia, writing and editing Graham's Magazine. He was a very brilliant and successful editor, but the fruits of his labors went to others, and the weird tales which he wrote for this paper brought him little except fame. Still, this period was the happiest of his life, for his reputation as a story writer was spreading even to Europe and he had a pleasant little home in the city. It was shortly after this that his wife met with an accident which rendered her an invalid for the rest of her life. The anxiety caused by this misfortune, together with fresh business troubles, so preyed upon Poe's delicate nervous organization that he began to resort to the stimulants that eventually clouded his intellect and wrecked his life. He became straitened for money and could no longer give his wife the comforts she needed, a fact which increased his despair. At this juncture an opportunity opened for Poe in New York, and in 1845 he moved to Fordham, a suburb of the city. Here he wrote "The Raven" for the Evening Mirror, and it at once brought him more fame than all his other writings put together. Little money came with it, however. The paper of which Poe had acquired control failed for want of funds, and for a time the family had not enough for the necessities of life. Friends, however, came to their aid, but a still heavier blow was to fall on the unhappy poet. In 1846 his wife died and thereafter Poe was never fully himself again. He still lived with Mrs. Clemm, writing for first one paper and then another. But his life was a wreck and he died miserably in Baltimore three years later. No American writer has possessed a brighter genius than Poe, a genius that neither temperament nor adverse circumstances could dim. But his |