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190

POETRY ALL-PERVADING.

THE POET'S PEN.

HE Poet's pen is the true divining rod

Which trembles towards the inner founts of feeling;
Bringing to light and use, else hid from all,

The many sweet, clear sources which we have
Of good and beauty in our own deep bosoms:

And marks the variations of all mind

As does the needle.

BAILEY.

POETRY ALL-PERVADING.

THE world is full of Poetry-the air
Is living with its spirit; and the waves
Dance to the music of its melodies,

And sparkles in its brightness. Earth is veiled

And mantled with its beauty; and the walls,
That close the universe with crystal in,

Are eloquent with voices that proclaim
The unseen glories of immensity,
In harmonies, too perfect, and too high,
For aught but beings of celestial mould,
And speak to man in one eternal hymn,
Unfading beauty and unyielding power.

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POETRY ALL-PERVADING.

Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gay,
The mournful, and the tender, in one strain,
Which steals into the heart, like sounds that rise
Far off in moonlight evenings, on the shore

Of the wide ocean resting after storms;

Or tones, that wind around the vaulted roof,
And pointed arches, and retiring aisles
Of some old, lonely minster, where the hand,
Skilful, and moved with passionate love of art,
Plays o'er the higher keys, and bears aloft
The peal of bursting thunder, and then calls,
By mellow touches, from the softer tubes,
Voices of melting tenderness, that blend
With pure and gentle musings, till the soul,
Commingling with the melody, is borne,
Rapt and dissolved in ecstacy, to heaven.

'Tis not the chime and flow of words, that move

In measured file and metrical array ;
'Tis not the union of returning sounds,
Nor all the pleasing artifice of rhyme,
And quantity, and accent, that can give
This all-pervading spirit to the ear,

Or blend it with the movings of the soul.
'Tis a mysterious feeling, which combines
Man with the world around him in a chain
Woven of flowers, and dipped in sweetness, till
He tastes the high communion of his thoughts
With all existences, in earth and heaven,
That meet him in the charm of grace and
"Tis not the noisy babbler, who displays,

power.

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192

POETRY ALL-PERVADING.

In studied phrase, and ornate epithet,

And rounded period, poor and vapid thoughts,
Which peep from out the cumbrous ornaments
That overload their littleness. Its words

Are few, but deep and solemn; and they break
Fresh from the fount of feeling, and are full

Of all that passion which, on Carinel, fired

The holy prophet, when his lips were coal,
His language winged with terror, as when bolts
Leap from the brooding tempest, armed with wrath.
Commissioned to affright us and destroy.

PERCIVAL.

THE POETS OF GREECE.

HERE shalt thou hear and learn

Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand; and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms, and Dorian lyric odes,

And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,

Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,

Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own :
Thence what the lofty, grave tragedians taught
In chorus or Iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received

In brief, sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate and chance, and change in human life.

MILTON.

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