with those dying falls of sound that increase and lessen thought and the power to harbor it; almost a voiceless spirit of invention, working without hands, yet the more subtile, potent, inclusive, for this evasive ideality, and for creations that are impalpable except through the arbitrary and non-essential symbols by which it now addresses itself to the educated eye.
Permit me to select, almost at random, from Keats and Tennyson, ready illustrations of the bounds and capabilities of the various arts—passages necessarily familiar, since they are from Keats and Tennyson, but chosen from those masters because, of all English poets since Spenser, they are most given to picture-making, to the craft that is, as we say, artistic, picturesque. A stanza from the How far he can illustrate and imitate sculpture."Ode on a Grecian Urn" describes, and rivals in verse, the ravishing power of a bit of sculpture to perpetuate arrested form and attitude—yes, even the suggestion of arrested music:—
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on—
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal; yet, do not grieve—
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss;
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair."
These undying lines not only define by words the
