280 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
is it that man always feels like an interloper in 
nature, as if he had intruded on the domains of 
bird and beast. 
The really efficient laborer will be found not 
to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to 
his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and 
leisure. There will be a wide margin for re¬ 
laxation to his day. He is only earnest to se¬ 
cure the kernels of time, and does not exagger¬ 
ate the value of the husk. Why should the 
hen sit all day ? She can lay but one egg, and 
besides she will not have picked up materials 
for a new one. Those who wurk much do not 
work hard. 
Nothing is so sure as sense. Very uncommon 
sense is poetry, and has a heroic or sweet music. 
But in verse, for the most part, the music now 
runs before and now behind the sense, is not 
coincident with it. Given the metre, and one 
will make music while another makes sense. 
But good verse, like a good soldier, will make 
its own music, and it will march to the same 
with one consent. In most verse there is no in 
herent music. The man should not march, but 
walk like a citizen. .... Lydgate’s “ Story 
of Thebes,” intended for a Canterbury tale, is 
a specimen of most unprogressive, unmusical 
verse. Each line rings the knell of its brother, 
as if it were introduced but to dispose of him. 
