COWPER When evening in her sober vest Drew the grey curtain of the fading west. Where covert guile and artifice abound. These are thy glorious works, thou Source of good, They are thy witnesses, who speak thy power ... Charity, 262-3. P. L. iv. 598-9. Ib. 285. Retirement, 87-92. Hope, 742-50. And goodness infinite. [Of created works as revealing God.] Task, v. 853-4. These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty! thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair: thyself how wondrous then! Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these Heavens To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. Delights unfelt before. When piping winds shall soon arise. A massy slab, in fashion square or round. In circuit, undetermined square or round. In the cushion fixed: If cushion might be called what harder seemed. The other Shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none. P. L. v. 153-9. Retirement, 360. Mrs. Throckmorton's Bullfinch, 17. Task, i. 21. P. L. ii. 1047-8. Ib. i. 54-5. P. L. ii. 666-7; cf. i. 227-8. (Similar parenthetical repetitions occur in The Task, i. 602-3, ii. 717, Bars and bolts Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates Of massy iron or solid rock with ease As one who, long in thickets and in brakes Entangled, winds now this way and now that... If chance at length he finds a greensward smooth As one who, long in populous city pent, Airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field. Overlaid with clear translucent glass. The voluble and restless earth. This less volubil Earth. Much yet remains Unsung. Half yet remains unsung. Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand Her undecisive scales. Chaos umpire sits, And by decision more embroils the fray By which he reigns; next him, high arbiter, Chance governs all. Task, ii. 745-7. P. L. ii. 877-9. Ib. iii. 1-10. Ib. v. 832-3. P. L. ix. 445-53. Ib. iii. 443. Ib. iii. 485. Ib. iii. 490. Ib. iii. 605-6. P. L. vii. 21. Ib. iv. 482-4. P. L. ii. 907-10. (Cf. P. L. ii. 960-67, where Discord is mentioned in connection with Chaos.) Arrowy sleet. Sharp sleet of arrowy showers. Ib. v. 140. P. R. iii. 324. (But cf. Gray's Fatal Sisters, 3, "Iron-sleet of arrowy shower.") {The effect of the fall of man upon the animals, as described in The Task, vi. 368-83, was probably suggested by Paradise Lost, x. 710–14, xi. 182–90.] Fixed motionless, and petrified with dread. Sheer o'er the craggy barrier. Sheer o'er the chariot front. Sheer o'er the crystal battlements. The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind. The wealth of Ormus and of Ind. And Saba's spicy groves. Sabaean odours from the spicy shore. From yonder withered spray. O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray. Ib. vi. 538. Ib. vi. 554. Task, vi. 806. Ib. vi. 807. To the Nightingale, 2. (The riming word is "May" in each case.) Ib. i. 678-9. xviii. 446. (Said by a woman to her husband in each case. Cowper has similar lines, ib. viii. 240-41, xiv. 97, Odyssey, i. 81.) Covert (as a noun, Task, i. 233, Iliad, viii. 305); cf. P. L. iii. 39, iv. 693, etc. Intestine war (Mutual Forbearance, 48); cf. P. L. vi. 259, ii. 1001. Massy (Task, i. 21, 59, ii. 746, Iliad, xiii. 620, 1007); cf. P. L. i. 285, 703, etc. Misdeems (Task, iv. 685); cf. P. L. ix. 301, P. R. i. 424. Nitrous air (Task, iii. 32); cf. P. L. iv. 815, vi. 512. Oary barks (Iliad, ii. 193, xviii. 318, Odyssey, iii. 205); cf. P. L. vii. 440. O'erleap (of barriers, Task, ii. 55, iii. 681, Table Talk, 302); cf. P. L. iv. 181, 583. Shagg'd (Iliad, xv. 378); cf. Comus, 429. Smit with (Task, v. 560); cf. P. L. iii. 29. Speculative height (Task, i. 289, Jackdaw, 13); cf. P. L. xii. 588-9, P. R. iv. 236. Well attired (of a plant, Task, vi. 168); cf. Lycidas, 146. WORDSWORTH1 Toil, small as pigmies in the gulf profound. Into the gulf profound. Bishops and Priests, think what a gulf profound. The swan uplifts his chest, and backward flings Evening Walk, 163. Idle Shepherd-Boys, 69-70. His neck, a varying arch, between his towering wings. . . . Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest. An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings. The swan, Between her white wings mantling proudly. Evening Walk, 218-31. Dion (original form), 1–7. P. L. vii. 438-9; cf. v. 279. (Wordsworth also speaks of the "mantling" celandine, To the Small (Wordsworth uses "bosomed" three times more, twice in the sense of And neighbouring moon, that coasts the vast profound, Wheel pale and silent her diminish'd round. While overhead the moon... Wheels her pale course. A gulf profound. Round through the vast profundity obscure. Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy red. Suffused with blushes of celestial hue. To whom the Angel, with a smile that glow'd Ib. (1793 ed.), 382-3. P. L. i. 784-6. P. L. ii. 592. P. L. vii. 229. Desc. Sketches, 475. Eccl. Sonnets, II. xxii. 5-6. P. L. viii. 618-19. 1 These parallels are nearly all taken from a collection of material regarding Wordsworth's debt to Milton, undertaken at Cornell University by Mrs. Alice M. Dunbar of Wilmington, Delaware, under the direction of Mr. Lane Cooper, who called my attention to the work. They are published here for the first time by the very kind consent of Mrs. Dunbar, whose list contains many more. |