Select Poems of Thomas Gray

by Thomas Gray

Broke=broken, as often in poetry, especially in the Elizabethan writers. See Abbott, Shakes. Gr. 343.

[27.] Drive their team afield. Cf. Lycidas, 27: "We drove afield;" and Dryden, Virgil's Ecl. ii. 38: "With me to drive afield."

[28.] Their sturdy stroke. Cf. Spenser, Shep. Kal. Feb.:

"But to the roote bent his sturdy stroake, And made many wounds in the wast [wasted] Oake;"

and Dryden, Geo. iii. 639:

"Labour him with many a sturdy stroke."

[30.] As Mitford remarks, obscure and poor make "a very imperfect rhyme;" and the same might be said of toil and smile.

[33.] Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from his friend West's Monody on Queen Caroline:

"Ah, me! what boots us all our boasted power, Our golden treasure, and our purple state; They cannot ward the inevitable hour, Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."