240 The Poets Beasts. 



side of the hedge, looking in vain for the hole it got 

 through, " having no sense to find the same again," and 

 " calling for help " as it trots up and down in nervous 

 bewilderment, the mother meanwhile pacing backwards 

 and forwards on the other side, and replying with a grave, 

 troubled voice to the pitiful lamentations of her little one ? 

 Indeed, getting lost or thinking that it is lost, and straight- 

 way abandoning itself to an excessive pity for itself, is 

 almost the normal condition of the lamb. 



" Soon lost and soon inquiring for its dam, 

 Wlio bleats and mumbles at bis slender call." 



As the " playful," " dancing " lamb, it is one of the 

 insignia of the poets' Spring, its voice a " vernal note " like 

 the linnet's, its presence contemporary with, and a co- 

 efficient of, the budding flowers and sprouting leaves and 

 birds' nests with their eggs. Spring personified comes with 

 " whinny braes all garlanded with gold " (Grahame), and 

 with lambkins sporting round her, " full of May." Its asso- 

 ciation with the linnet is often very prettily worked in, as 

 where Crabbe has "browsing by the linnet's bed," and 

 Grahame, the lamb chasing his twin round and round " the 

 linnet's bush." In Phineas Fletcher's eclogue one of the 

 features of the vernal season is the lamb ; " they forget 

 their food to mind their sweeter play," and so too in 

 Bloomfield's " Spring " this charming adjunct of the young 

 year finds, with characteristic aflfection for Nature, con- 

 spicuous description. The passage commencing — 



" A few begin a short but vigorous race, 

 And indolence astonished soon flies the place. 

 Thus challenged fortli, see thitiier, one by o)ie, 

 From every side assembling playmates run," 



makes a delightful vignette. 



But of all the metaphors and similes drawn from this 

 inexhaustible source, I would give the palm to Lovelace's— 



