29. =Ambition.= Ambitious people. Such personification is frequent throughout the poem. 33. =The boast of heraldry.= The pride of lineage or family descent. Heraldry was the science that dealt with armorial bearings; and a family who were versed in heraldry and knew the meaning and history of their coat-of-arms might be in a position to boast of their lineage. 38. =trophies.= Memorials to commemorate their great deeds. 39. =fretted vault.= The arched ceiling ornamented with fretwork. 41. =storied urn.= A vessel containing the ashes of the dead, and inscribed with a record of his virtues. =animated bust.= A life-like image. 43. =provoke.= Call forth. 41-44. What is the use of such trophies? they cannot bring the dead back to life, and neither honour nor flattery can appeal to those who are dead. 46. =pregnant with celestial fire.= Filled with the poetic spirit. 48. =the living lyre.= The musical instrument seeming almost as if it had life. 51. Their poetic fervour (rage) was repressed by poverty. 52. =the genial current of their soul.= The flow of their finer feelings and emotions. 58. =The little tyrant of his fields.= The landowner who attempted to tyrannize over him. 60. =guiltless of his country’s blood.= The general opinion held of Cromwell in the eighteenth century was that he was a cruel tyrant who was “guilty of his country’s blood.” The village Cromwell is guiltless because he has had no opportunity to act the part of a real Cromwell. 61. =senates.= Assemblies. 64. In the gratitude of the nation they saw the results of their own efforts. 65-72. If their humble lot prevented the development of their best qualities, it also limited their opportunity for doing wrong. It prevented them from becoming tyrannical, from telling what is false, from having to conceal their feelings of shame, and from accepting the flattery which poets too often bestow upon their proud and wealthy patrons. 70. =ingenuous.= Without artifice, frank, open-hearted. 73. This line is adjectival to the pronoun _they_ implied in _their_. =madding.= Maddening, distracting. 76. =tenour.= Course. 78. =still.= Always, in all cases. 81. =unlettered.= Uneducated. 87. =the warm precincts of the cheerful day.= The warm bright earth. =precincts.= Limits, boundaries. 88. =nor cast.= Without casting. 90. =pious drops.= Tears which are due to the dying (Lat. _pius_, dutiful). It soothes the dying to know that some-one is weeping for their loss. 91. Even the dead seem to cry out for remembrance. 93. =thee.= The poet is addressing himself. 94. =artless.= Simple, without deceit. 97. =Haply.= Perhaps. =Swain.= Country man, rustic. 105. =smiling.= Modifies _he_, l. 106. 108. =Or . . or.= Either . . or, a poetical form. 123. =Science.= Knowledge, in the wide sense of the word. 126-8. His merits and his weaknesses are both alike left in the hands of God. =dread abode.= Explained by the last line, which is in apposition.