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and perhaps only one, where he indulges in mere fancy. 
It is called ‘‘ The Tide Rock.’’ It is so short that it may 
be quoted in full, and it is pretty enough to be worth quoting. 
How sleeps yon rock, whose half day’s bath is done. 
With broad bright side beneath the broad bright sun, 
Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. 
Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses 
From drooping brows we find her slowly weeping. 
So many a wife for cruel man’s caresses 
Must inly pine and pine, yet outward bear 
A gallant front to this world’s gaudy glare. 
The observation here is exact and the thought is as 
graceful as the language. But it is a mere illustration. 
There is no real connexion between the rock, which after 
all has no sad feeling, and the pathetic courage of the 
woman. Of course that kind of thing is often admirable in 
poetry ; an illustration, simile, analogy, makes a thought 
vivid. The poets whom Kingsley said he could not rival 
fill their verse with:splendour by such means. But it is the 
peculiar excellence of Kingsley that his genius felt strange 
among those ornaments. His method may be seen, strongly 
marked, in ‘‘ The Poetry of a Root Crop.”’ 
Underneath their eider-robe 
Russet swede and golden globe, 
Feathered carrot, burrowing deep, 
Steadfast wait in charméd sleep ; 
Treasure houses wherein lie, 
Locked by angels’ alchemy. 
Milk and hair, and blood, and bone, 
Children of the barren stone ; 
Children of the flaming Air, 
\ With his blue eve keen and bare, 
Spirit-peopled smiling down 
On frozen field and_ toiling town— 
Toiling town that will not heed 
God His voice for rage and greed ; 
Frozen fields that surpliced lie, 
Gazing patient at the sky ; 
Like some marble carven nun, 
With folded hands when work is done, 
Who mute upon her tomb doth pray, 
Till the resurrection day. 
This is not to be understood quite easily at first. It is 
so close to nature herself that its meaning is never 
exhausted ; it means more and more every time it is read. 
It penetrates deeper and deeper into our life through many 
stages ; the vegetable life, the life-bearing earth and air, 
the angels who, as in the Psalms, are living powers of 
