172 The Poets Beasts. 



and Moore, and Shelley. *' Its soft black eye," "large and 

 languishingly dark," " glorious," " now brightly bold or 

 beautifully shy," is almost a poetical proverb, and " gazelle- 

 eyed " one of their supreme compliments — 



" Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell ; 

 But gaze on that of the gazelle, 

 It will assist thy fancy well." 



But the poets were wrong to speak of them as going in 

 vast herds, or to make them " of many a colour, size, and 

 shape," and still more to place their wild gazelles among 

 lilies and on " flowery champaigns." In Nature it is beauti- 

 fully placed in sandy wastes and amongst the barrenness of 

 the wilderness.^ 



Among the later poets the chamois meets with occasional 

 reference, as the companion of the eagle in mountain heights 

 that "mock the hunters' might," and "baffle the hunters' 

 ken." It is the " flying chamois," leaping across "the dark- 

 blue crevasse," skipping over "the glaciers bright," an 

 emblem of Swiss independence and liberty generally : " shy 

 as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies." 



The elk, "in his speed and might," though a vague entity, 

 is no doubt that favourite figure of red man's myth and 

 tradition, the mighty animal that in the epoch of the bison 

 was one of the noblest trophies of the northern Indians and 

 the feast-dish of the braves. Thomson happily depicts the 

 elk in one of its picturesque situations — 



" Scarce his head 

 Raised o'er the snowy wreath, tlie branching elk 

 Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss ; " 



and Moore refers to a curious tradition — 



* Says a great naturalist, " It prefers the bare plain, rocky hill, or 

 sandy wa--te, and a l;anen country to a rich one." 



