ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



Many of the most haunting poems in the 

 English language were thus born of water; 

 witness Shelley's "Cloud," Byron's "Ocean," 

 Arnold's "Dover Beach," and Tennyson's 

 "Break, Break, Break," "The Brook," and 

 "Crossing the Bar," not to mention "The 

 Passing of Arthur," whose closing scene, in 

 which the barge glides slowly over the water, 

 makes an ethereal ending, a spiritual climax, 

 ideally fitting for an ideal king. Launcelot, 

 or a great many kings, whose names cour- 

 tesy bids one suppress, might go down to 

 dusty death the usual way without exciting 

 reasonable protest. But there are other 

 characters in fiction, and perhaps in life, 

 who, in their passage to the kingdom of 

 Ponemah, should go by water. This neces- 

 sity was keenly felt by the authors of the 

 old Anglo-Saxon epics. Unspoiled by the 

 influences of an effete civilization, which 

 might have robbed them of the kinship they 

 felt with the great forces of nature, the 

 heroes of those early epics made a fine dra- 

 matic finish, after the manner of King 

 Scyld: 



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