XII. CORA AND K RON OS. 209 



The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed 

 Embattel'd in her field ; and th* humble shrub, 

 And bush ^c^th frizzled hair implicit : last 

 Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread 

 Their branches hung with copious fruits, or gemm'd 

 Their blossoms ; with high woods the hills were crown 'd ; 

 With tufts the valleys and each fountain side ; 

 With borders long the rivers." 



Only to learn, and be made to understand, these twelve 

 lines thoroughly would teach a youth more of true botany 

 than an entire Cyclopaedia of modern nomenclature and 

 description : they are, like all Milton's work, perfect in 

 accuracy of epithet, while consummate in concentration. 

 Exquisite in touch, as infinite in breadth, they gather 

 into their unbroken clause of melodious compass the con- 

 ception at once of the Columbian prairie, the English 

 cornfield, the Syrian vineyard, and the Indian grove. 

 But even Milton has left untold, and for the instant per 

 haps unthought of, the most solemn difference of rank 

 between the low and lofty trees, not in magnitude only, 

 nor in grace, but in duration. 



8. Yet let us pause before passing to this greater sub- 

 ject, to dwell more closely on what he has told us so 

 clearly, the difference in Grace, namely, between the 

 trees that rise ' as in dance, ' and ' the bush with frizzled 

 hair. ' For the bush form is essentially one taken by 

 vegetation in some kind of distress ; scorched by heat, 

 discouraged by darkness, or bitten by frost ; it is the 

 form in which isolated knots of earnest plant life stay 



