36 Hartley Burr Alexander 



infinities ; and at last, soothed through very awe, he measures 

 the conqueror of time, the world's unrest and its quieting. Not 

 less inclusive than the cosmos would be his soul; not more futile 

 is the wrecked ship at sea than human life; the one attainment is 

 the peace of surrender. A more native example is Shelley's Ode 

 to the West Wind, — element after element of the wind's wild 

 imagery is gathered to a cumulative node of energy till by the 

 final strophe this energy becomes all the poet's own : 



Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 

 What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 

 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

 Will take from both a deep autumnal tone. 

 Sweet tho' in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 

 My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 



The movement, be it noted, is ideational and emotional, not 

 necessarily sensuous as in the lyric aria ; but the principle and 

 effect is the same — to give ideal unity and finish to the expression. 

 Perhaps the fullest recognition of the psychosis here exemplified 

 is in sonnet structure, the octet portraying nature, the sestet 

 flooding with the spiritual illumination which is the poem's in- 

 spiration ; but it is present also wherever the lyric, in contrast to 

 mere song glee, becomes reflective or impressionistic. 5 In such 

 poetry want of it is an imperfection likely to be keenly felt. For 

 instance, Shelley's Isle: 



There was a little lawny islet 

 By anemone and violet, 



Like mosaic paven : 

 And its roof was flowers and leaves 

 Which the summer's breath enweaves 

 Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze 

 Pierce the pines and tallest trees, 



Each a gem engraven. 



5 A perfect illustration of the ideational form, stripped of verbal re- 

 frain, is Walt Whitman's : 



As I watch'd the ploughman ploughing, 



Or the sower sowing in the fields — or the harvester harvesting, 



I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies : 



(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.) 



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