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''Far from the sun and summer-gale
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face:''
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Thomas Gray (1716-1771), British poet. The Progress of Poesy (l. 82-86). . .
Gray's English Poems; Original and Translated from the Norse and the ...
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''Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.''
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Thomas Gray (1716-1771), British poet. The Progress of Poesy (l. 62-64). . .
Gray's English Poems; Original and Translated from the Norse and the ...
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Robin Barton (5/1/2010 9:17:00 PM)
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My comments are more on the poem, 'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat' than on thomas Gray.(who also wrote 'Elegy Written in a Cpuntry Churchyard') .
The Ode is a beautifully sad poem that yet manages to be delightfully comical through its use of language: It has some of the qualities of mock epic poetry in which the trivial is elevated to the near-grand. The cat is elevated to near human status by such words as 'reclined', 'beard', 'purred applause, 'nymph', and 'presumotuous maid''. Similarly the goldfish are elevated to grander status by such descriptions as 'angel forms', 'genii of the stream' and 'scaly armour'. Even the goldfish bowl is seen comically as containing a 'lake', 'tide', 'stream' and 'flood' which is further elevated by being imagined to contain such mythical entities as a 'watery god' (Neptune? !) , Nereids - and a dolphin! Even Fate is imagined as a cruel god causing the tragedy and smiling as it occurs. The moral that all that appears attractive is not to be trusted is comically and teasingly sexist: 'ye beauties' are to beware of the temptations of (presumably male?) flesh. For me this is favourite comic poem.
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