"
Or in the fine passage in the Vision of Sin, where
"Then the music touched the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seemed to fail,
Stormed in orbs of song, a growing gale;" &c.
Or where the Talking Oak composes its serenade for the pretty
Alice; but indeed his descriptions of melody are almost as abundant
as his melodies, though the central music of the poet's mind is, he
says, as that of the
"fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love."
Next to his music, his delicate, various, gorgeous music,
stands his power of picturesque representation. And his, unlike
those of most poets, are eye-pictures, not mind-pictures. And yet
there is no hard or tame fidelity, but a simplicity and ease at
representation (which is quite another thing from reproduction)
rarely to be paralleled.
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