The torrent of the thoughts is one of the perennial effects of intense emotion. The whole night is passed in such dreams:

:

Love at first sight, first born, and heir to all,
Made this night thus.

Henceforth, on all manner of slight pretexts, he goes day by day to the cottage; feasts his eyes on her beauty; at last succeeds in obtaining the return of affection. Endearments commence, which are graced by the poet's usual scenic accompaniments. Then comes the conversation, leading up to exchange of vows:

Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells

Of that which came between, more sweet than each,
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves
That tremble round a nightingale.

And the fine pathetic conclusion:

Behold her there.

As I beheld her ere she knew my heart,
My first, last love; the idol of my youth,
The darling of my manhood, and, alas!

Now the most blessed memory of mine age.

Such an avowal is a worthy climax of affection, redeeming it from passing fancy and frivolity, and attesting its extraor dinary power for conferring happiness.

We may remark again on the efficacy of a plot or story to bring out the strength of love, and to carry home the impression. The other arts have become apparent in the course of the review.

The painful phase of the love passion has already received prominence in the illustrations from the ancient poets. It will be sufficient now to make a brief allusion to Pope's Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard'.

Pope had the advantage of starting from Eloisa's own letters, which kept him in the right track in his delineation. He superinduced upon this his own poetic treatment, according to his judgment of effect.

Eloisa having embraced the conventual vows, is yet unable to suppress her passion for Abelard; and the struggle of the two motives, tearing her heart to pieces, is the prevailing idea of the poet's handling. He takes care to picture the gloomy interior of the convent as a reflex of her feelings; and follows with an expression of her furious attachment

to the beloved one; making her reflect, as she goes on, upon the dismal incongruity between her feelings and her present duties. She appeals to Abelard still to write to her, and let her share his griefs. She can think of nothing but his image, while she goes mechanically through her religious devotions. But this is a fight too dreadful to be borne. Her spirit again re-asserts the fulfilment of her vows. She bursts out

No, fly me, fly me! far as pole from pole. She falls back upon virtue and immortality as her single aim; prepares her mind for an early consignment to the tomb. Even then she invokes the presence of Abelard, to perform the last offices and see her departure; and prays that one grave may unite them, as a memento to lovers in after ages.

The tragedy of the whole situation dispenses with many of the usual modes of representing a lover's distress. The conflict with religious duty alone suffices to attest the violence of the passion.

The chief adverse criticism would be that the language is too uniformly dignified and rhetorical for the natural utterance of intense passion.

The question may be put-Why should a poet depict such great misery? The love passion when prosperous is pleasant to sympathize with; pleasure calls up pleasure in our minds.

The answer is this:-Such a picture of devotion to a man inspires us with the grateful feeling of nobleness of character in its most touching form. We like to contemplate the fact that one human being is able to evoke such a strength of devotion in the breast of another; it is an enormous possibility of happiness to both, when fortune smiles on their felicity.

The next example is from Scott. In The Lady of the Lake, Canto I., Ellen is portrayed in three fine stanzas. In the first, her approach in the boat, in response to the stranger's horn, is embedded in scenic description, and she is left in an attitude compared to a Grecian statue. Her person is delineated in a succession of circumstantials of beauty, falling under Scott's usual comprehensive sketch.

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace

A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,
Of finer form, or lovelier face.

Her complexion is given by an indirect allusion:-
What though the sun with ardent frown,
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,-
The sportive toil, which, short and light,
Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,
Served too in hastier swell to show
Short glimpses of a breast of snow.

He next passes to her step

A foot more light, a step more true,

Ne'er from the heath flower dash'd the dew:

Again her speech

What though upon her speech there hung
The accents of the mountain tongue,-
Whose silver sounds, so soft, so dear,

The listener held his breath to hear.

This is so far well, although somewhat meagre as a picture. In another stanza, the poet enters upon her costume, and through it gives some additional touches to the personal description:

And seldom was a snood amid

Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid.

But the main subject of the stanza is her beauty of character, which is supposed to be revealed at once in her fine expression. The development of the story is the comment on the qualities here set forth, and includes the details of her love-making, and her destiny in correspondence thereto.

The poem of Matthew Arnold entitled Switzerland' is a noble expression of love sentiment, through its various phases, including final separation. The picture of the loved one is given with well-managed brevity.

I know that graceful figure fair,

That cheek of languid hue;
I know that soft enkerchief'd hair,
And those sweet eyes of blue.

An addition is afterwards made, without confusing what went before :—

The lovely lips, with their arch smile that tells

The unconquer'd joy in which her spirit dwells.

The chief feature of the poem is the splendid series of descriptions of Swiss scenery, which are supposed to mingle harmoniously with the love emotions, or at all events to provide alternatives to the story. These descriptions have

MATTHEW ARNOLD'S 'SWITZERLAND'.

157

a merit of their own, and their connexion with the author's feelings is traceable in so far as they minister to the intensity. The stanzas describing the feelings in direct terms are expressed in well-selected circumstances.

Forgive me! forgive me!

Ah, Marguerite, fain

Would these arms reach to clasp thee!

But see! 'tis in vain.

Far, far from each other

Our spirits have grown;

And what heart knows another?
Ah! who knows his own?

Blow, ye winds! lift me with you!

I come to the wild,

Fold closely, O Nature!

Thine arms round thy child.

The Farewell' is energetic and reflective :—

And women- things that live and move
Mined by the fever of the soul-
They seek to find in those they love

Stern strength, and promise of control.

The closing stanzas take an elevated strain :

How sweet, unreach'd by earthly jars,
My sister! to maintain with thee
The hush among the shining stars,
The calm upon the moonlit sea!

The windings of this remarkable poem are suggestive of the love passion, not merely as regards its intensity, but for its persistence under want of encouragement-perhaps the highest testimony that can be rendered to the depth and power of the feeling.

The love poetry of Burns affords an abundant exemplification of nearly all the known devices peculiar to the theme. Consisting of short effusions, mainly songs, it almost entirely excludes plot-interest; occasionally there is a slight use of narrative, as in 'The Soldier's Return' and 'There was a lass and she was fair'.

In regard to description of the object of love, Burns usually depends on a few unsystematic touches, expressive of the emotion excited. Sometimes, however, he does enter on a regular enumeration of the qualities that charm; but his method even then is rather to elevate the object by comparisons, both figurative and literal, than to give any

distinct impression of the personal appearance. The following is an example:-

Her looks were like a flower in May,

Her smile was like a simmer morn;
She tripped by the banks of Earn,
As light's a bird upon a thorn.

Her bonny face it was as meek
As ony lamb upon a lea;

The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet,
As was the blink o' Phemie's ee.

More elaborate specimens of the same method are seen in Young Peggy' and 'On Cessnock Banks'. In 'Sae flaxen were her ringlets,' we have an exceptional amount of detail:

Sae flaxen were her ringlets,

Her eyebrows of a darker hue,
Bewitchingly o'er-arching

Twa laughing een o' bonny blue.

But the remainder proceeds in his more usual manner:

Her smiling sae wiling

Wad make a wretch forget his woe;

What pleasure, what treasure,

Unto these rosy lips to grow!

The

Among charms to be celebrated, Burns does not overlook the mental, especially reciprocated affection. refrain of one song is, 'She says she lo'es me best of a',' and of another, Kind love is in her ee'.

But the largest constituents of Burns's love songs are the expression of the lover's own feelings and the use of harmonizing circumstances. The methods employed under these heads are sufficiently varied.

The pleasure of the loved one's presence, the pain of absence, the memory of past happiness, the hope of meeting again, and the pain of unrequited love are all employed for the purpose; and these are expressed with the hyperbolical intensity appropriate to love. Reference may be made to 'Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast,' 'Corn Rigs,' 'My ain kind dearie,' and 'Mary Morison'. Sometimes a striking and characteristic action is happily introduced, as in Mary Morison':

Yestreen, when to the trembling string

The dance gaed through the lighted ha'
To thee my fancy took its wing-

I sat, but neither heard nor saw.