36 TJie Poets Beasts. 



appointed if they expect to see anything but a very large 

 dog-like animal. Its eyes are "glowing flames" (Chatterton), 

 and " fire-ball " eyes " that make horrid twilight in the sun- 

 less jungle"^ (Montgomery); they "flash" and "glare." 

 But there is nothing of awe in the aspect of the tiger, 

 according to the poets, except to such poor things as lambs 

 and kids and fawns. Blake is a notable exception, in the 

 poem commencing — 



" Tiger ! tiger ! burning bright 

 In the forests of the niglit : 

 What immortal hand or eye 

 Could form thy fearful symmetry ? " 



Its voice is "dreadful," it "growls terrific," but it has 

 no effect upon the surrounding forests and its inhabitants, 

 such as the roar of lions is supposed to have when they 

 burst 



" From dreams of blood, awaked by maddening thirst, 

 "When the lone caves, in which they shrunk from light, 

 Ring with wild echoes through the hideous night. 

 When darkness seems alive, and all the air 

 Is one tremendous uproar of despair." — Montgomery. 



The "thirsting tiger's yell," "hideous howl," "voice more 

 horrid than the roar of famished tiger leaping on his prey," 

 and other expressions of objection to the sound are very fre- 

 quent, but none of them give any notion at all of the supreme 

 awfulness of the real voice in nature, that literally hushes 

 the jungle and fills the twilight with horror. Not that tigers 

 roar much. When, as in Darwin, "with kindling flame, he 

 hears the love-lorn night-call of his brinded dame," the 

 tiger has a very solemn and dreadful utterance, but Mont- 



.So Jean Ingclow :- 



In tangles of the jungle reed 

 Wiiose heats are lit witli tiger eyes." 



