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But again, even in our large town itself, we are not without elements 

 of poetry. We have our noble river, with the mysterious tides of the 

 infinite ocean daily rushing into it ; we can look across it to the green 

 and smiling Cheshire shore, and the grander though more distant 

 beauties of the mountains of Wales, diversified with gleam and shadow, 

 and sometimes streaked with snow. 



All poets agree that the sea, the boundless and ever-changing deep, 

 is the most poetical object in nature, the most sublime source of 

 poetical sentiment and emotion. It would be endless to quote all that 

 poets have written upon this great neighbour of ours. Milton has 

 taken one of his noblest images from the skiey and transparent ex- 

 panse of the ocean when seen from a high cliff : 



" As when far off at sea a fleet descried 

 Haugs in the clouds » * * 

 ***** so seemed 

 Far ofi' the flying Fiend." 

 Byron's magnificent address to the ocean in " Childe Harold " will 

 here occur to the memory of every lover of poetry. Then we have the 

 ever-varying beauties of " the sky which bends o'er all," — the glories 

 of sun-set, and the chaste purity of moon-light. Shelley's poem on 

 " The Cloud," too long to be quoted, is full of the most brilliant and 

 truly poetical fancy, and strictly appropriate to what all may observe. 

 We can enter into the beauty of all the descriptive poetry which relates 

 to night and to the moon ; and there is muchj of this, for it is a 

 favourite source of imagery and allusion with many poets. Southey, 

 for example, in his " Thalaba," exclaims — 

 " How beautiful is night ! 

 A dewy freshness fills the sUent air : 

 No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain. 



Breaks the serene of heaven : 

 In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine 

 Rolls through the dark blue depths. 

 Beneath her steady ray 

 The desert-circle spreads, 

 Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. 

 How beautiful is night ! " 



Even to the inhabitants of a large town there is truth in the sentiment 

 of Mrs. Hemans — herself a native of Liverpool — 



" There 's beauty all around our paths, if but oui- tranquil eyes 

 AVould trace it in familiar things, and wrapt in lowly guise." 



But if we arc shut out from much of the beauty of nature, there 

 are elements of poetry in some of the social features of our vast town. 

 Cowper has indeed said — 



" God made the country, and man mado ihu town ;" 



