74 DEFINITION OF POETRY. 



the " eye-brows of the moon" the latter might be ex- 

 plained on the supposition that the Ettrick Shepherd 

 meant the man in the moon ; but it is a poser to com- 

 prehend the sleep of moonlight. 



In addressing the ocean Lord Byron says 



" I wantoned with thy breakers" 

 "And laid my hand on thy mane." 



What would one of your Plymouth trawlers, Mr. Edi- 

 tor, think of of a man who could wanton with the 

 breakers ? He would be the boy for the bow-oar in a 

 life boat. Do you suppose, Sir, that any of the hoary 

 headed captains in your town ever found that the sea 

 had such an appendage as, by right belongs to horses, 

 lions, buffaloes, &c. viz. a mane ? 



In describing a lady going out of her senses he says 



" thought came too quick 

 And whirled her brain to madness." 



Here is a beautiful damsel, lying still on her bed, head 

 and all, yet her brain although pretty tightly packed in 

 the inside of her skull, and affixed thereto with some 

 considerable adhesiveness by its membranes, is never- 

 theless spinning round and round and round like a boy's 

 peg top. Byron was certainly not ignorant of Physio- 

 logy. Thomas Moore says 



"The hearty like a tendril, accustomed to clinir, 

 Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone, 



But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing 

 It can twine with itself and make closely its own." 



Some of us know that a man's heart is a somewhat 

 round lump of flesh, about the size of a moderate fist, 

 how then can it become elongated, like the stalk of a 

 kidney bean, and lean over to the thing it likes best in 

 order to twist itself round it. 



Alaric Watts in describing two little girls says they are 



"the youngest twinkling stars of an April sky ; " 

 and in the next verse he says they were 



" dancing," " glittering," " hiding," " gliding," " gentle streams." 



Thomson talks of the 



"groans of agonizing ships." 



Coleridge warbles 



