Cf. Chaucer, C. T. 3880:
"Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken."
Gray himself quotes Petrarch, Sonnet 169:
| "Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Fredda una lingua e due begli occhi chiusi, Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville," |
translated by Nott as follows:
| "These, my sweet fair, 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 [above], footnote.