A. By no means; a verse may frequently, from the admixture of different feet, have either a syllable nore, or a syllable less, than the requisite number; as, "How fleet | is a glance | of the mind, Compared with the speed of its flight; And the swift-winged arrows of light." CHAPTER XI. OF PASTORAL AND DESCRIPTIVE POETRY. Q. What is the nature of Pastoral Poetry? A. It is that poetry in which the scenes and objects of rural life are celebrated or described. Q. What is the strict meaning of the word pastoral? A. As coming from the Latin word pastor, a shepherd, in strictness of meaning, it implies only what is connected with the care of sheep; but it is generally taken in a wider sense, to denote every thing connected with country life and occupation. Q. Whence does the great charm of pastoral poetry arise? A. From the tranquil scenes, and pictures of simple innocence, which it sets before the reader. Q. Into what error are writers of pastorals apt to fall? A. That of making the actors, in their different scenes, either too gross or too refined. Q. What do you understand by Descriptive Poetry? A. Poetry, the professed object of which is to give a correct delineation of objects, whether natural oi artificial. Q. Is not all poetry, to a certain extent, descriptive? A. Most poetry abounds in descriptions, and is so far entitled to the appellation; while no poetry is altogether descriptive without possessing some other characteristics; and, therefore, the term is applied to such poetry only as has description for its chief ob ject. Q. What is the chief excellence of descriptive poetry? A. Its possessing the power of exciting in the mind of the reader a correct and vivid picture of the object described Q. What is requisite for the writing of descriptive poetry? A. Acute observation, and great vividness of imagi nation, that we may at once observe, and be able to delineate, the most striking features of an object or a Jandscape. Q. Can you mention any poem that stands very high, and be longing to the descriptive class? A. Thomson's Seasons, a work which abounds with some of the most delightful delineations of nature. Q. In what light may we view poetry in which past events are described? A. As a species of descriptive poetry; and, when well executed, it possesses great power both of fascinating and pleasing the mind. Q. Can you mention any poetry of this class? A. The most of Sir Walter Scott's is of this sort, but particularly his Lady of the Lake, his Marmion, and his Lord of the Isles. Q. Are not pastoral poetry and descriptive very much allied to each other? A. They are certainly closely connected; but pas. toral poetry is a display of rural life and manners; descriptive poetry, chiefly a picture of inanimate objects; though neither is exclusively confined to its own province.-(See Montgomery's Lectures, p. 157-167.) CHAPTER XII. OF DIDACTIC AND LYRIC POETRY. Q. What do you mean by Didactic Poetry? A. Poetry employed for the purpose of teaching some particular art or science, or other branch of knowledge, whether moral or intellectual. Q. Is this a pleasing vehicle of knowledge? A. If well executed, there can be but one opinion as to its pleasantness, but it may be doubted whether it be always a safe mode of acquiring accurate information. Q. What are its chief advantages? A. It at once pleases the fancy and assists the memory; and an obvious truth may often be express ed with greater brevity and force in verse than in prose. Q. What do you conceive to be its disadvantages? A. By taking possession of the imagination, it is apt to mislead the judgment, and make us ready to acquiesce in what is said by the poet, without inquiring into its truth. Q. Can you mention any poems of the didactic class? A. Virgil's Georgics, Pope's Essay on Criticism, Armstrong's Poem on Health, and some of Cowper's poems, are among the best and most popular of this class. Q. What is to be understood by Lyric Poetry? A. All poetry intended to be set, or that might be set to music, including chiefly songs and odes. Q. Was its meaning always so confined? A. No; for, in ancient times, it might be said to include poetry of all descriptions, as all poetic compositions were originally accompanied with music, either vocal or instrumental. Q. From what is the word lyric derived? 4. From the lyre, an important musical instrument among the ancients; and hence the lyre is generally an emblem of all poetry. Q. What, then, does a poet mean when he speaks of singing or tuning his lyre? A. Simply the writing of poetry; and he uses these expressions in a figurative manner, in reference to the inseparable connection which once subsisted between poetry and music. Q. What do you understand by a song? 4 A short poem in regular stanzas, and fitted for being set to music and sung. Q. What is the nature of the ode? A. A poem somewhat irregular in its structure, and which may or may not be set to music; being generally a short but fervid flow of genius, displaying, in animated strains, all the various passions and feelings of the human heart. Q. Who are our principal writers of odes? A. Dryden, Pope, Collins, Gray, and Warton. A. The word is from the Italian, and literally means a little song; but, as usually employed, it signifies a short poem, consisting generally of fourteen lines, arranged in a particular manner, and ending in some pointed thought or sentiment. SECTION II. EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH LYRICS. The first is a small one; but, as Montgomery says, it grows (like the taper in the second stanza) clearer and brighter the more it is contemplated. It describes a captive under sentence of death, and is written by Goldsmith: "The wretch, condemn'd with life to part, Still, still on hope relies, And every pang that rends his heart Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, And still, as darker grows the night, Poetry is the short-hand of thought. This is evident from the quantity of thought contained in the few lines that follow: TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL IN THE REBELLION OF 1745 "How sleep the brave who sink to rest With all their country's wishes bless'd When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall a while repair To dwell, a weeping hermit there."-COLLINS. Again, what a quantity of thought is here condensed in the ompass of twelve lines, like a cluster of rock-crystals, sparkling and distinct, yet receiving and reflecting lustre by their combination. The stanzas themselves are almost unnvaled in the association of poetry with picture, pathes with fancy, grandeur with simplicity, and romance with reality. The melody of the verse leaves nothing for the ear to desire, except a continuance of the strain, or, rather the repetition of a strain, which can not tire by repetition. The imagery is of the most delicate and exquisite character, Spring decking the turfy sod, Fancy's feet treading upon the flowers there, fairy hands ringing the knell, unseen forms singing the dirge of the glorious dead; but, above all, and never to be surpassed in picturesque and imaginative beauty, Honor, as an old and broken soldier, coming on a far pilgrimage to visit the shrine where his companions in arms are laid to rest and Freedom, in whose cause they fought and fell-leaving the mountains and fields, the hamlets and the unwalled cities of England, delivered by their valor-hastening to the spot, and dwelling (but only for "a while") "a weeping hermit there." The sentiment, too, is profound: "How sleep the brave?" Then, in that lovely line, "With all their country's wishes bless'd!" 66 is implied every circumstance of loss and lamentation, of solen!nity at the interment, and posthumous homage to their memory, by the threefold personages of the scene, living, shadowy, and preternatural beings. As for thought, he who can hear this little dirge "sung," as it is, by the "unseen form" of the author himself, who can not die in it-without having thoughts, as thick as motes that people the sunbeams," thronging through his mind, must have a brain as impervious to the former as the umbrage of a South American forest to the latter. There are in its ass ciations of war, peace, glory, suffering, life, death, immortality, wich might furnish food for a midsummer-day's meditation, and aidwinter night's dream afterward, could June and Decembe be made to meet in a poet's revery. FROM THE EXEQUY ON THE DEATH OF A BELOVED WIF "Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed, Never to be disquieted: My last good-night! thou wilt not wake Till age, or grief, or sickness, must Marry my body to that dust It so much loves, and fill the room And follow thee with all the speed Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gala." What a "last good-night!" is this! and oh! what a one "good morrow!" to last for eternity, when such partners awake from. the same bed, in the resurrection of the just! Is tnere the "man born of a woman," who has loved a woman, and lost whom he loved, and lamented whom he has lost, that will not feel in the depth of his spirit all the tenderness and truth of these old-fashion ed couplets! I dare not offer a comment upon them, lest I should disturb the sanctity of repose which they are calculated to inspire |