"Life is real, life is earnest,

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul."

Here we have but a shadow of ideality, combined with a pure and lofty sentiment, and with sublime truth beautifully and forcibly spoken. The rhythm and meter are perfect, each word seeming to drop gently into its place without study or effort-no transposition or distortion to produce measure or meter, but an easy flow of language like the musical murmur of a gentle stream. The following also from the pen of our own revered Bryant, as plain descriptive poetry is equally perfect and beautiful in its way:

"Chained in the market-place he stood,

A man of giant frame,

Amid the gathering multitude,

That shrunk to hear his name.

"All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground,
And silently they gazed on him
As on a lion bound."

Here, as in the former example, there is no apparent effort to produce rhyme or meter, and yet each is perfect, presenting the subject in a manner clear and forcible, and in language plain, yet beautiful.

Equal in meter and rhyme, but superior in the higher elements, is the following from the immortal Burns, occurring in his inimitable poem, "Tam O'Shanter":

"Pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snowflake on the river,

A moment white, then gone forever.

"Or like the borealis race,

That flits ere you can point the place;

Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amidst the storm."

Here we have beauty of language, ideality, sublimity of thought illustrated by truthful comparison. Any one who has plucked a full-blown poppy, and with regret seen its bright petals fall ere he had severed it from the parent stem, or stood on the bank of a smoothly gliding stream and watched the feathery snowflakes as they fell lightly on its dark bosom, or watched the constant and rapid changes of the aurora borealis, or the sudden disappearance of the rainbow, will be convinced of the beauty and truth of the poet's illustrations.

Also the following from the pen of our revered Bryant, as he gazes upon the frail form and wan, wasted features of a dying girl-a victim of consumption:

"Death should come

Gently and to one of gentle mould like thee,

As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossoms from the tree."

This is full of beauty, ideality touching pathos, exquisite tenderness, and truthful illustration. Any one who has walked among blooming trees and seen their delicate blossoms showered down by the gently passing breeze, will appreciate the truth, beauty and appropriateness of the poet's illustration.

And again, from the gifted pen of Miss Landon, on the same subject, we have the following:

"Day by day,

The gentle creature died away,
As parts the odor from the rose-
As fades the sky at twilight's close-
She passed, so tender and so fair."

We can scarcely conceive of anything in language more exquisitely beautiful and highly figurative.

XII.

In the above quotations we have examples of what I regard as the highest type of poetry, possessing all the essential elements. This type and style of poetry may be said to bear the same relation to plain prose that the artistically finished painting, with all of its beauty of coloring and minuteness of detail, does to the plain pencil sketch.

There is perhaps no better illustration of this than we find in the familiar piece, from the pen of Byron, entitled "The Destruction of Sennecharib."

Sennecharib, King of Assyria, having ravaged portions of Judea and laid waste many of her large cities, determined upon the destruction of Jerusalem, the great and beautiful city of Judea. To this end he encompassed it with a mighty army. Hezekiah, king of Judea, feeling unable to resist so formidable an enemy, and being greatly in fear that the city would be destroyed, appealed earnestly to the God of Israel for divine guidance and protection. The Lord of Hosts answered him through the mouth of his prophet, Hosea, saying, "The Assyrian shall not injure the chosen city, nor enter its gates; he shall not build a bank against it nor even shoot an arrow into it, but shall return the way he came to his own country." And so it came to pass, for 185,000 of

his army perished in one night. After which Sennecharib, gathering together the remnant, returned the way he came, as the prophet had foretold.

This is the plain statement of history, which we will now compare with the poetical description as given by Byron, that prince of poets:

"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the deep waves roll nightly on deep Galilee.
"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleeper waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever were still.

"And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide,
But through them rolled not the breath of his pride,
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray on the rock-beaten surf.

"And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

"And the widows of Asher are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord."

What could more forcibly illustrate the cruel rapacity of a conqueror who seeks only conquest and rapine, than a wolf, gaunt with hunger, with jaws distended and eyes gleaming with the fire of cruelty, descending upon the helpless fold, thirsty for the blood of its victims? But let us contemplate briefly the picture which the poet has spread out before us. In imagination we stand upon the walls of Jerusalem, and what do we behold? A mighty host, an army with banners, chariots and horsemen, extending in every direction as far as the eye can reach; and, as the sun sinks to the horizon, his last rays are glinted back by spear and helmet, by saber and shield and battle-axe. What could more fitly represent the almost countless host than "the leaves of the forest when summer is green," and what more vividly represent the miraculous change in this mighty host, which the morrow's sun revealed, than "the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown"--the faded and withered leaves of the forest when the blighting frost and the fierce winds of autumn have sent them dry and withered to the ground? Where a few short hours before was the stir and bustle of a mighty army settling down to rest, now reigns the stillness and desolation of death

"The tents are all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown."

And what, we are led to ask, has produced this mighty change?

"The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And the hearts but once heaved, and forever were still."

What more striking illustration of the effect of a great pestilence or the