Certainly, whether this be so or not, it was to his
blindness, as an occasion, if not as a cause, that England's great poet
owed much of the majestic movement and sonorous splendour of his later
verse. When Milton could no longer write he began to sing.--_The Critic
as Artist_.
THE SECRETS OF IMMORTALITY
On the mouldering citadel of Troy lies the lizard like a thing of green
bronze. The owl has built her nest in the palace of Priam. Over the
empty plain wander shepherd and goatherd with their flocks, and where, on
the wine-surfaced, oily sea, [Greek text], as Homer calls it,
copper-prowed and streaked with vermilion, the great galleys of the
Danaoi came in their gleaming crescent, the lonely tunny-fisher sits in
his little boat and watches the bobbing corks of his net. Yet, every
morning the doors of the city are thrown open, and on foot, or in horse-
drawn chariot, the warriors go forth to battle, and mock their enemies
from behind their iron masks. All day long the fight rages, and when
night comes the torches gleam by the tents, and the cresset burns in the
hall.
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