27. Farewell, O day misspent ;
Thy fleeting hours were lent
In vain to my endeavor.
In shade and sun
Thy race is run
Forever! oh, forever!
The leaf drops from the tree,
The sand falls in the glass,
And to the dread Eternity

The dying minutes pass.-Mackay.

28. Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

30.

Blow him again to mc;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.—Tennyson.

29. Under my window, under my window,

All in the midsummer weather,

Three little girls with fluttering curls

Flit to and fro together:

There's Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen,
And Maud with her mantle of silver-green,

And Kate with her scarlet feather.-Westwood.

Work-work-work!

From weary chime to chime,
Work-work—work—

As prisoners work for crime!

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed,
As well as the weary hand.—Hood.

31. I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;

For words, like Nature, half reveal,

And half conceal the Soul within.-- Tennyson.

32. Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly,
Smooth and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly!-Hood.

33. By the craggy hillside,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring

To dig up one in spite,

He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.-Allingham.

34. Alas! the joys that fortune brings
Are trifling, and decay;

And those who prize the paltry things,
More trifling still than they.-Goldsmith.

35. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.-Gray.

36. Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? Oh, sweet content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
Oh, punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
Oh, sweet content!-Dekker.

37. Opinion governs all mankind,

Like the blind's leading of the blind.-Butler.

38. But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown

before

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore.”—Poe.

39. The splendor falls on castle walls,
And
snowy summits old in story:

The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.— Tennyson.

40. Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man.
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness-to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too, of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.-Keats.

41. I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the sea and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.-Shelley.

Poetic Pauses. In addition to the pauses required by the sense, two suspensions of the voice-the final and the casural pause-belong to verse.

The final pause is a slight suspension of the voice at the end of each line, even when the grammatical sense does not require it.

The cæsural pause is a slight suspension of the voice within the line, and generally, though not always, about the middle of it. Long lines may have two or more cœsural pauses. In these lines the cæsura is marked (II): Soldier, rest! || thy warfare o'er.

Eternal sunshine || of the spotless mind.

Of all the Grecian woes, || O goddess, sing!

Lives through all life, || extends || through all extent,
Spreads || undivided, operates || unspent.

Much of the harmony of our meters, and of iambic meters especially, depends on the skillful disposition of cæsural pauses. They often correspond, though not always, to pauses required by the sense. Skillful poets aim to construct their lines in such a way that the final and cæsural pauses shall fall where they are required by the meaning, or grammatical construction. The cæsural pause should never be placed so as to injure the sense.

In iambic meters, the most appropriate place for cæsural pauses is after the fourth, or after the sixth syllable. If the pause fall after the fourth syllable, the briskest melody is thereby produced, and the most spirited air given to the line. If the pause fall after the fifth syllable, the verse becomes more smooth, gentle, and flowing; if it follow the sixth syllable, the tenor of the music becomes solemn and grave; if it fall after the seventh syllable, which is the nearest place to the end of the line that it can occupy, the grave, solemn cadence becomes still more sensible.

CHAPTER XV.

POETRY.

Poetry may be defined as the product of an excited and a creative imagination, with a primary object to please, and expressed in the form of verse. The most artistic department of literature, it is near akin, in its effects, to music and painting. The poet is a creator-an artist-sensitive to impressions which do not affect ordinary natures; he gives to his fancies a delicacy of form, a warmth of coloring, and a richness of expression alien to prose, the common drudge between man and man."

66

Poetry does not confine itself to the language of common life. It selects words for their beauty of sound and association, for their picturesqueness, for their elevation-rare words often, words that are even obsolete in prose.

It uses the transposed order in a degree forbidden in conversation, unpardonable even in impassioned oratory. "Imperfect periods are frequent; elisions are perpetual; and many of the minor words, which would be deemed essential in prose, are dispensed with.

Poetry admits of a bold use of imagery. Herbert Spencer says: "Metaphors, similes, hyperboles, and personifications are the poet's colors, which he has liberty to employ almost without limit. We characterize as 'poetical' the prose which uses these appliances of language with any frequency; and condemn it as 'overflorid' or 'affected'