In costly sheen and gaudy cloak arrayed, The lord of lowing herds; but not before Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls, Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit His angry tail;-red rolls his eye's dilated glow. Sudden he stops; his eye is fixed: away, The skill that yet may check his mad career. (1) Matadore-from the Spanish matador, a murderer, from the Latin mactator, which is from mactare, to kill. The office of the matadore is obvious from the context. (2) Aloof-i. e. all off-entirely separate. (3) Nor more, &c.-i. e. nor more can a man, thus lightly armed, do than fight aloof, without his friendly steed. (4) Mute-synonymous with silent and dumb. He is silent who does not speak; dumb, who cannot speak; and mute, who is compelled by circumstances to be silent. The epithet silent is often applied to things that admit no sound, as here, "the silent circle." (5) Lashing spring—a peculiar use of the term "lashing." The noun "lash" is derived from the French lascher, to let loose, and signifies that which is cast loose or thrown. A lashing spring, therefore, may be a leap all abroad, free, unchecked, enormous or which, as it were, lashes the air. (6) Away, thou heedless boy, &c.-There is great beauty in the sudden change of the narrator into an actual sharer in the scene itself. He seems so intensely interested in the scene he is describing that he cannot refrain from calling out to warn the "heedless boy" of his danger, and the reader's sympathy is proportionately quickened. With well-timed croupe1 the nimble coursers veer; Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes. Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, And now the Matadores around him play, Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine, The corse is piled-sweet sight for vulgar eyes! Such the ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain. (1) Croupe or croupade-a particular leap, taught in the manège, or ridingschool-it is higher than that called the curvet. (2) Foiled-to foil, is thus distinguished from to baffle; to foil, signifies to defeat one's adversary by disabling him; to baffle, to defeat him by perplexing or counteracting his plans. (3) Brast-an old form of burst, from the Anglo-Saxon berst-an, to break out or forth, or generally, to break; hence, "brast" is broken. Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow. Byron. SPRING. MINDFUL of disaster past, And shrinking at the northern blast, Murmurs the blossomed boughs around From the dark dell's entangled steeps: O'er the field of waving broom Slowly shoots the golden bloom: And but by fits the furze-clad dale Tinctures the transitory gale. Scant along the ridgy land The beans their new-born ranks expand; ; Fringing the forest's devious edge (1) Gloating-connected with glowing-looking at anything with ardent or eager eyes, that indicate pleasure in the sight. (2) Phalanxed host-an army drawn up in a phalanx or dense square body. (3) Southern bound-it has been objected to this line, that the wall which has the southern aspect will be the northern, not the southern boundary. (4) Peeps, shoots-these words serve well to show the animation that is given to language by the use of metaphors. It might have been said that the primrose could scarcely be "seen" or "found" in the dark dell, but this would have been tame and inexpressive; whereas a sort of human interest is conferred upon the little flower by the word "peeps." Again, how vividly is the sudden effect of the blossoming broom on the eye painted by the word "shoots!" (5) Devious-see note 3, p. 15. Or to the distant eye displays, Beneath a willow long forsook The fisher seeks his 'ccustomed nook, By lordly man's usurping yoke, (1) Weakly green-The poet Gray, in one of his letters, speaks of "that tender emerald green, which one usually sees only a fortnight in the opening of the spring." (2) Fondly-foolishly-this is the ancient meaning of the word. Chaucer says "The rich man full fond is, I wis, That weneth (fancies) that he loved is." (3) Fraught-connected in derivation with freight-laden, completely filled. (4) Lower, or lour-from low-to become low as if about to fall, hence to be heavy, dark, stormy, or threatening. (5) Hues-A beautiful couplet; the lark, just before mute, now tunefully pursues her flight amongst the very fragments, as it were, of the rainbow, floating about in the air. (6) Long forsook-that is, only throughout the winter, for it was the fisherman's accustomed nook. The bounding colt forgets to play, Yet, in these presages rude, T. Warton. (1) Pied-party-coloured or variegated like the pie, a bird so named. (2) Inlay-a beautiful fancy; the rills, like veins of silver, inlay the vale. The passage, however, is much marred by the sudden abandonment of the metaphor -the expression "pass through," which follows, being purely literal. (3) Fancy, &c.-i. e. fancy discovers the future in the present. She sees in the opening buds of spring the full-blown flowers of summer, and the ripe fruits of autumn. (4) Teeming-from the Anglo-Saxon tym-an, to bring forth abundantly. (5) Dappled-some derive this word from apple, as if streaked or spotted like an apple; but this etymology is doubtful. The word is more probably a diminutive of dab or daub, to spot or smear, as nibble of nip, and waddle of wade; hence, to dabble or dapple, is to spot or streak many times, or in many places. (6) Crown of corn-Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, is usually represented with a chaplet of wheat around her temples. (7) Ample horn-the horn of plenty, also called Cornucopiæ. The allusion is derived from ancient mythology, which informs us that Jupiter's nurse filled a goat's horn, which had been accidentally broken off, with fruits, and wreathing it with flowers, gave it to the babe, who, when he grew up and became powerful, made the horn the emblem of fertility. See Ovid, Fasti. lib. v. 115–128. |