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Oftentimes the poet, by some almost 

 inexplicable process, conjures up an ex- 

 pression which literally means nothing, 

 and yet bears in it, as a mirror might, 

 the reflection of something strangely rich 

 in meaning. For example, Villon's verse : 



Ou sont les neiges d'antan? 



SO perfectly translated by Rossetti : 



Where are the snows of yester-year? 



Baudelaire sings of the warm waves of 

 the Southern seas as 



Infinite cradlings of fragrant idleness. 



When Burns says to the birds : 



Ye mind me o* departed joys, 

 Departed never to return, 



his vision of human sadness is as direct 

 and as immediate as Shakspere's ever was 

 at its highest dramatic reach. 



By what trick is it that Cowper needs 

 to go no further than 



Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness ! 

 145 



