POE 
P O I 
P O I 
That to the fringed bank, with myrtle 
crown’d, 
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.” 
There is in local description a charm that 
renders objects, in themselves uncongenial, 
engaging to the mind. The following pas- 
sage presents few images of beauty : but 
in contemplating it, who does not feel, that 
without being removed from the common 
walk of nature, he is visited by the influences 
of poetry ? 
“ The day is come, when I again repose 
Here under this dark sycamore, and view 
'Those plots of cottage ground, the orchard 
tufts, 
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, 
Among the woods and copses lose them- 
selves. 
Nor with their green and simple hues disturb 
The wild green landscape. Once again I see 
Hedge-rows, then hardly hedge-rows, little 
lines 
Of sportive wood run wild. These pastoral 
farms 
Green to the very door, and wreathes of 
smoke 
Sent up in silence from among the trees ; 
With some uncertain notice, as might seem. 
Of vagrant dwellers in the fenceless woods ; 
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire 
The hermit sits alone.” 
If such is the charm of local scenery, yet 
greater is the captivation of that individual 
and characteristic sentiment, which, from its 
appropriation to the drama, has been called 
dramatic. Such indeed is its enchantment, 
that it has been found capable of producing 
the most exquisite emotion, without apy aux- 
iliary embellishments from figurative lan- 
guage or picturesque imagery. We are 
never more delighted with the poet than 
•when thus intimately admitted to his confi- 
dence, when we are suffered to commune with 
his hear:, to explore his mostr etired thoughts, 
and partake hi- most sacred fee’ings. This 
charm of individuality was in some of his 
poems eminently posse sed by Chaucer and 
some of our elder bards ; it constituted the 
leading feature in Cowper’s lays; it formed 
the magic of Burns ; and it distinguishes 
the author of the Lyrical Ballads. The pa- 
thetic like the sublime, must be concise 
and simple. It depends not so much on the 
thought as, the expression. Virgil’s descrip- 
tion of Andromache on recognizing Tneas at 
the tomb of Hector, is strikingly beautiful : 
“ Veranetua facies? & verus mihinuncius af- 
ters ? 
Nate dea, vivisne ? aut, si lux alma recessit, 
Ubi Hector est?” 
The whole passage is affecting, but the pa- 
thos dwells in the “ ubi Hector est ?” Figu- 
rative language is often happily employed in 
the description of impassioned feeling. Some- 
times it appears to be the natural overflowing 
of tenderness : 
“ Thy cave should be a lover’s bower. 
Though raging winter rent the air ; 
And she a lovely little flower. 
That I would tend, and shelter there,” 
In general, however, the simple and un- 
adorned. style is most appropriate to pathos 
and tenderness. Thus Constance, ia her 
touching appeal to the Cardinals, exclaims of 
her son • 
o 
j “ And so he’ll die ; and rising so again. 
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven 
T shall not know him ; therefore never, never, 
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.” 
The curiosaf elicit as, that charm or felicity 
of expression which Horace so happily ex- 
emplified, is one of the most powerful agents 
in producing poetical emotion. It is the at- 
tribute which belongs only to the poet of na- 
ture ; and is the effusion of some fortunate 
moments, when consummate judgment has 
been impelled and inspired by exquisite feel- 
ing. It is impossible but that the readers of 
Shakspeare and Milton must recollect innu- 
merable examples of this kind of excellence. 
Who has not felt the enchantment conveyed 
by Shakspeare’s “ heaven-kissing hill ?” 
W lat lover of nature has not in some bright 
autumnal morning, while contemplating a 
rural scene, experienced that mixed sensa- 
tion of enjoyment and stillness which is all 
described in “ the air smells wooingly ?” Fe- 
licity of expression is the native idiom of geni- 
us ; and as the goddess of beauty was discover- 
ed by her first movements, the genuine poet 
may be detected by a single epithet. The 
spirit of poetry is not confined to subjects of 
dignity and importance: it may be perceived 
in a simple lay, and even in a sportive song. 
It visited Sappho, as it had sojourned with 
Pindar ; and was as truly the attendant of 
Theocritus as of Honier. Nor is poetical 
emotion inspired only by the song of heroes 
and of Gods. It may be awakened even by 
the strain of playful tenderness, in which the 
lover celebrates some darling of his mistress. 
The requisites of the true poetical character 
are thus happily summed up by the duke of 
Buckingham : 
“ ’Tis not a flash of fancy, which sometimes, 
Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest 
rhymes, 
Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done. 
True wit is everlasting, like the sun. 
Which, though sometimes behind a cloud re- 
tir’d. 
Breaks out again, and is by all admir’d; 
Number, and rhyme, and that harmonious 
sound 
Which not the nicest ear with harshness 
wound. 
Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts ; 
And all in vain these superficial parts 
Contribute to the structure of the whole, 
W ithout a genius too, for that’s the soul ; 
A spirit which inspires the work throughout. 
As that of nature moves the world about ; 
A flame that glows amid conceptions fit, 
Even something of divine, and more than wit; 
Itself unseen, yet all things by it shewnj^ 
Describing all things, but describ’d by none.” 
POHLIA, a genus of the class and order 
cryptogamia musei, included in the bryonia 
of Linna’us. 
POINCIANA, Bariadoes flower-fence, a 
genus of the monogynia order, in the decan- 
dria class of plants, and in the natural method 
ranking under the 33d order, lomentacca?. 
The calyx is pentaphyllous ; the petals fivq, 
the uppermost larger than the rest ; the sta- 
mina long, and all fertile ; the seed-vessel a 
legumen. There is only one species, viz. 
the puicherrima, a native of both Indies. It 
rises with a straight stalk 10 or 12 feet high ; 
the branches are terminated by loose spikes 
of flowers, which are sometimes formed into 
47 i 
a kind of pyramid, and at oilier? disposed 
more in the form of an umbel. The foot- 
stalk of each flower is near three inches long; 
the flower is composed of five petals, which 
are roundish at the top, but are contracted to 
narrow taiis at the base. They spread open, 
and are beautifully variegated with a deep 
red or orange colour, yellow, and some spots 
of green; and emit a very agreeable odour. 
After the flower is past, tiie germen becomes 
a broad flat pod three inches long, divided 
into three or four cells by transverse parti- 
tions, each including one ' flatfish irregular 
seed. The plant is propagated by seeds ; 
but, being tender, is to be constantly kept in 
the bark-stove. 
POINT, in geometry, as defined by Eu- 
clid, is a quantity which has no parts, or 
which is indivisible. Points are the ends or 
extremities of lines. If a point is supposed 
to be moved any way, it will, by its motion, 
describe a line. 
Point of contrary flexure. See Flex- 
ure. 
Point, in music. This word, as conjoined 
with others, has various significations. The 
different uses to which points were formerly 
applied, render the perusal of old composi- 
tions extremely difficult and perplexing. In 
those works we meet with the point of per- 
fection, point of augmentation, point of divi- 
sion, anti point of alteration. The point of 
perfection was added to those notes which 
w ! ere denoted by the modal signs to be per- 
fect, or equal to three notes of the same va- 
lue, but which were rendered imperfect by 
position. The point of augmentation is that 
in modern use, which the old masters used 
only in common, or imperfect, time. The 
point of division, or imperfection, was placed 
between two shorter notes that followed, and 
were succeeded by, two longer in perfect 
modes, to render both the long notes imper- 
fect. The point of alteration, or of dupli- * 
cation, was placed before two shorter notes 
preceding a longer, in order to double the 
length of the second short note. In modern 
music, the point, taken as an increased 
power of the note, is always equal to the 
half of the note to which it appertains. 
Point, in astronomy, a term applied to 
certain points or places, marked in the hea- 
vens, and distinguished by proper epithets. 
The four grand points or divisions of the ho- 
rizon, viz. the east, west, north, and south, 
are called the cardinal points. See Hori- 
zon, East, West, &c. The zenith and 
nadir are the vertical points ; the points 
wherein the orbits of the planets cut the 
plane of the ecliptic, are called the nodes : the 
points wherein the equator and ecliptic inter- 
sect, are called the equinoctial points; par- 
ticularly, that whence the sun ascends to- 
wards the north pole, is called the vernal 
point ; and that by which he descends to the 
south pole, the autumnal point. The points 
of the ecliptic, where the sun’s ascent above 
the equator, and descent below it, terminate, 
are called the solstitial points ; particularly 
the former of them, the estival or summer 
point ; the latter, the brumal or winter 
point. 
Points, in heraldry, are the several dif- 
ferent parts of an escutcheon, denoting the 
.oeal positions of any figure. See Herald- 
ry. 
