Nothing happened on this date although The Booklover’s Almanac tells me “the first instalment of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen was entered [?] at Stationers’ Hall in 1589.
Daily Readings:
- Keat’s In a Drear-Nighted December
- Thomas Gray’s Progress of Poesy
- Sir Francis Hastings Doyle’s Private of the Bluffs
The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode
II.1. Man's feeble race what ills await, Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse? Night, and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky: Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war.
II.2. In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom To cheer the shiv'ring native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the od'rous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat In loose numbers wildly sweet Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves. Her track, where'er the goddess roves, Glory pursue, and generous Shame, Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.
Little bit more on Thomas Gray from a couple of days ago.
