+Stanza 5,+ 1. 2. _Not all to that bright station dared to climb._ The
conception embodied in the diction of this stanza is not quite so clear
as might be wished. The first statement seems to amount to this--That
some poets, true poets though they were, did not aspire so high, nor
were capable of reaching so high, as Homer, Dante, and Milton, the
typical epic poets. A statement so obviously true that it hardly
extends, in itself, beyond a truism. But it must be read as introductory
to what follows.
1. 3. _And happier they their happiness who knew._ Clearly a recast
of the phrase of Vergil,
'O fortunati nimium sua si bona norint
Agricolae.'
But Vergil speaks of men who did not adequately appreciate their own
happiness; Shelley (apparently) of others who did so. He seems to
intimate that the poetical temperament is a happy one, in the case of
those poets who, unconcerned with the greatest ideas and the most
arduous schemes of work, pour forth their 'native wood-notes wild.' I
think it possible however that Shelley intended, his phrase to be
accepted with the same meaning as Vergil's--'happier they, supposing
they had known their happiness.
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