The English Lyric 47 



pression, and an ineffable grace in diction and imagery. Our 

 poets' best is written in a mode not luminous with the mere sun- 

 shine; it hues nature with enchantments more radiant than any 

 wrought by Celtic witchery; it gives to life a finer temper than 

 the iron of the North. Something is embodied from each of 

 these modes, but all is transmuted to the evolved vitality of a 

 new Engl 'isli mode. A charm of mystery it has, and a breath of 

 suspense, like childish trepidation lest a too dear caress might 

 crush the wings of beauty, — these, with reverence, as of awe for 

 holy things. 



Likely it would be better not to try to illustrate, where illustra- 

 tion is needless ; yet sometimes the quoting of a poem which 

 haunts the mind as embalming the essence of the thought will 

 serve to fix even most familiar qualities. In Poe's earlier stanzas 

 To Helen the allusion is classical, but the beauty of the poem is 

 not born from the sunny foam of the Mediterranean : 



Helen, thy beauty is to me 



Like those Nicean barks of yore. 

 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 



The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 



To his own native shore. 



On desperate seas long want to roam, 



Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

 Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 



To the glory that was Greece 



And the grandeur that was Rome. 



Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche 



How statue-like I see thee stand ! 

 The agate lamp within thy hand ! 



Ah ! Psyche, from the regions which 



Are Holy Land! 



But it is in our poetry of wood and field that we oftenest meet 

 unalloyed the native quality. Perhaps this is because spring- 

 tide rapture and delight in blossoming hedgerows is the oldest 

 lyric instinct of our race. To the ancient Northmen the freeing 

 of the mother of earth's fruitfulness — loveliest of goddesses — 

 from the icy embrace of Fafnir was the great year-joy, — com- 



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