, so warns prophetic thought,
Clos'd thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue,
E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught,"

the "these" meaning his love and his songs concerning it. Gray
translated this sonnet into Latin elegiacs, the last line being
rendered,

"Ardebitque urna multa favilla mea."

93. On a MS. variation of this stanza given by Mitford, see p. 80,
footnote.

95. _Chance_ is virtually an adverb here = perchance.

98. _The peep of dawn_. Mitford quotes _Comus_, 138:

"Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice morn, on the Indian steep
From her cabin'd loop-hole peep."

99. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ v. 428:

"though from off the boughs each morn
We brush mellifluous dews;"

and _Arcades_, 50:

"And from the boughs brush off the evil dew."

Wakefield quotes Thomson, _Spring_, 103:

"Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent brush, as through the verdant maze
Of sweetbrier hedges I pursue my walk."

100. _Upland lawn_. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 25:

"Ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eyelids of the morn."

In _L'Allegro_, 92, we have "upland hamlets," where Hales thinks
"upland=country, as opposed to town." He adds, "Gray in his _Elegy_
seems to use the word loosely for 'on the higher ground;' perhaps he
took it from Milton, without quite understanding in what sense Milton
uses it." We doubt whether Hales understands Milton here. It is true
that _upland_ used to mean country, as _uplanders_ meant countrymen,
and _uplandish_ countrified (see Nares and Wb.), but the other
meaning is older than Milton (see Halliwell's _Dict. of Archaic
Words_), and Johnson, Keightley, and others are probably right in
considering "upland hamlets" an instance of it. Masson, in his recent
edition of Milton (1875), explains the "upland hamlets" as "little
villages among the slopes, away from the river-meadows and the
hay-making."

101. As Mitford remarks, _beech_ and _stretch_ form an imperfect
rhyme.

102. Luke quotes Spenser, _Ruines of Rome_, st. 28:

"Shewing her wreathed rootes and naked armes."

103. _His listless length_. Hales compares _King Lear_, i. 4: "If you
will measure your lubber's length again, tarry." Cf. also _Brittain's
Ida_ (formerly ascribed to Spenser, but rejected by the best
editors), iii. 2:

"Her goodly length stretcht on a lilly-bed."