ring the way a similar question is put
by the exquisite sincerity of Keats:--

He wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus, with half-shut, suffused eyes, he stood;
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by
With solemn step an awful goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said,
_"How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea?"_

_Hyperion_, 3. 42.--[Ruskin.]

[61] See Wordsworth's _Peter Bell_, Part I:--

A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

[62] _Jude_ 13.

[63] _Kings_ xxiii, 18, and _Hosea_ x, 7.

[64] _Iliad_, 3. 243. In the MS. Ruskin notes, "The insurpassably
tender irony in the epithet--'life-giving earth'--of the grave";
and then adds another illustration:--"Compare the hammer-stroke at
the close of the [32d] chapter of _Vanity Fair_--'The darkness came
down on the field and city, and Amelia was praying for George, who
was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart. A
great deal might have been said about it. The writer is very sorry
for Amelia, neither does he want faith in prayer. He knows as well
as any of us that prayer must be answered in some sort; but those
are the facts. The man and woman sixteen miles apart---one on her
knees on the floor, the other on his face in the clay. So much love
in her heart, so much lead in his. Make what you can of it." [Cook
and Wedderburn.]

[65] The poem may be crudely paraphrased as follows:--

"Quick, Anna, quick! to the mirror! It is late,
And I'm to dance at the ambassador's ...
I'm going to the ball ...

"They're faded, see,
These ribbons--they belong to yesterday.
Heavens, how all things pass! Now gracefully hang
The blue tassels from the net that holds my hair.

"Higher!--no, lower!--you get nothing right!...
Now let this sapphire sparkle on my brow.
You're pricking me, you careless
thing! That's good!
I love you, Anna dear. How fair I am....

"I hope he'll be there, too--the one I've tried
To forget! no use! (Anna, my gown!) he too ...
(O fie, you wicked girl! my necklace, _this?_
These golden beads the Holy Father blessed?)

"He'll be there--Heavens! suppose he takes my hand
--I scarce can draw my breat