[126.] Mitford says that Or in this line should be Nor. Yes, if "draw" is an imperative, like "seek;" no, if it is an infinitive, in the same construction as "to disclose." That the latter was the construction the poet had in mind is evident from the form of the stanza in the Wrightson MS., where "seek" is repeated:
| "No farther seek his merits to disclose, Nor seek to draw them from their dread abode." |
[127.] In trembling hope. Gray quotes Petrarch, Sonnet 104: "paventosa speme." Cf. Lucan, Pharsalia, vii. 297: "Spe trepido;" Mallet, Funeral Hymn, 473:
"With trembling tenderness of hope and fear;"
and Beaumont, Psyche, xv. 314:
"Divided here twixt trembling hope and fear."
Hooker (Eccl. Pol. i.) defines hope as "a trembling expectation of things far removed."
ODE ON THE SPRING.
The original manuscript title of this ode was "Noontide." It was first printed in Dodsley's Collection, vol. ii. p. 271, under the title of "Ode."