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important ; and one class of poetry finds its best exponent in 

 one form of stanza. The rhyme of the elder poets is merely 

 a felicitous adjmict " the tinkling of a cymbal through the 

 choral harmonies." In later times fulsome dedications were 

 penned, and poems written to order. Happily the age of patron- 

 age is past, and our literature is free and unfettered. The highest 

 poetry is infinitely beyond a mere meclianic art. Some of our 

 poems, like "In Memoriam," have taken half a lifetime to write, 

 while others have been left mafinished, like the Faery Queene of 

 Spenser, the Christabel of Coleridge, the Hyperion of Keats, and 

 Chaucer's tale of Cambuscan bold. The poet writes as a seer to 

 whom his message is a burden and to whom " it is a necessity that 

 his words should be words of fire." Milton spoke of the poet's 

 work as to be raised only " by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit 

 who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his 

 seraphin, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify 

 the lips of whom he pleases." The more the lyrist or song- 

 writer has of passion and personal impetus the better, and the 

 true lyrical moment has been described as the time when the 

 primary perturbation has just so far subsided that his trembling 

 hand can sweep the strings. 



" Visions come and go, 



Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng 



From angel lips I seem to hear the flow 



Of soft and holy song, 



In a purer clime 



My being fills with rapture-waves of thought 



Roll in upon my spirit-strains sublime 



Break over me unsought. 



Give me now my lyre ; 



I feel the stirrings of a gift divine ; 



Within my bosom glows a hallowed fire, 



Lit by no skill of mine." 



The product of this can be summed up in one word — poetry. 

 In Stedman's sketch of E. B. Browning there is a fine passage 

 describing how when her eye had grown dim and her poetic force 

 seemed abated, there came a short time when her inspiration 

 returned. For a brief space " the sun on the hill forgot to die, 

 and the lilies revived and the dragon fly came back to dream on 

 the river." Like her own Hebrew poets Mrs. Browning was not 

 disobedient to the heavenly vision, she surrendered herself to the 

 play of her imagination as if some angelic voice were speaking 

 through her. When, in Arno-girdled Florence her life of pain 

 and suffering was drawing to a close she was at the last, as 

 ever, the enraptured seer of celestial visions. The history of our 

 literature abounds with such pictures. (Instances given : Long- 

 fellow and the origin of Excelsior — Coleridge^ — Wordsworth 

 enjoying " the harvest of a quiet eye " — Milton, old and blind, 



