Note 227 — III. CONVERSATIONS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH.
Reading edition
The 'abrupt and laconic structure' of Glover's periods appears at the very commencement of Leonidas, which has something military in its movement, but rather the stiff gait of the drilled soldier than the proud march of the martial hero.
The virtuous Spartan who resign'd his life To save his country at th' Oetaen straits, Thermopylae, when all the peopled east In arms with Xerxes filled the Grecian plains, O Muse record! The Hellespont they passed O'erpowering Thrace. The dreadful tidings swift To Corinth flew. Her Isthmus was the seat Of Grecian council. Orpheus thence returns To Lacedaemon. In assembly full, &c.
Glover's best passages are of a soft character. This is a pleasing Homerism:
Lycis dies, For boist'rous war ill-chosen. He was skill'd To tune the lulling flute, and melt the heart; Or with his pipe's awak'ning strains allure The lovely dames of Lydia to the dance. They on the verdant level graceful mov'd In vary'd measures; while the cooling breeze Beneath their swelling garments wanton'd o'er Their snowy breasts, and smooth Cayster's streams Soft-gliding murmur'd by. The hostile blade, &c. Bk. VIII.
And here is a pleasing expansion of Pindar, Olymp. II. 109:
Placid were his days, Which flow'd through blessings. As a river pure, Whose sides are flowery, and whose meadows fair, Meets in his course a subterranean void; There dips his silver head, again to rise, And, rising, glide through flow'rs and meadows new; So shall Oïleus in those happier fields, Where never tempests roar, nor humid clouds In mists dissolve, nor white descending flakes Of winter violate th' eternal green; Where never gloom of trouble shades the mind, Nor gust of passion heaves the quiet breast, Nor dews of grief are sprinkled. Bk. X. S.C.