. No doubt the
expression may be inadequate, but if we can compensate the deficiency by
adding more vision, so much the better for us.

In the second stanza there is a strange combination of images: the rock
buds; and buds a fountain; the fountain is light. But the images are so
much one at the root, that they slide gracefully into each other, and
there is no confusion or incongruity: the result is an inclined plane of
development.

I now come to the most musical and most graceful, therefore most lyrical,
of his poems. I have left out just three stanzas, because of the
sentimentalism of which I have spoken: I would have left out more if I
could have done so without spoiling the symmetry of the poem. My reader
must be friendly enough to one who is so friendly to him, to let his
peculiarities pass unquestioned--amongst the rest his conceits, as well
as the trifling discord that the shepherds should be called, after the
classical fashion--ill agreeing, from its associations, with Christian
song--Tityrus and Thyrsis.

A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS.

_Chorus_. Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight
Hath met love's noon in nature's night;
Come, lift we up our loftier song,
And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stolen[140] joy
He slept, and dreamed of no such thing,
While we found out heaven's fairer eye,
And kissed the cradle of our king:
Tell him he rises now too late
To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more
Than he e'er showed to mortal sight--
Than he himself e'er saw before,
Which to be seen needs not his light:
Tell him, Tityrus, where thou hast been;
Tell him, Thyrsis, what thou hast seen.

_Tityrus_. Gloomy night embraced the place
Where the noble infant lay:
The babe looked up and showed his face:
In spite of darkness it was day.
It was thy day, sweet, and did rise
Not from the east, but from thy eyes.
_Chorus._ It was thy day, sweet, &c.

_Thyrsis_. Winter chid aloud, and sent
The angry north to wage his wars:
The north forgot his fierce intent,
And left perfumes instead of scars.
By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers,
Where he meant frosts, he scattered flowers.
_Chorus._ By those sweet eyes', &c.

_Both_. We saw thee in thy balmy nest,
Young dawn of our eternal day;
We saw thine eyes break from the east,
And chase the tremblin